M. Night Shyamalan (by Brett)

M. Night Shyamalan, meet Del Close...

To start, I really liked M. Night Shyamalan's first three movies. I thought they were masterfully written and directed. And, while most people agree that The Sixth Sense was great, I have heard mixed reviews about Signs and Unbreakable. I personally loved them and I will explain why. But, in order for the following blog to make sense, I need you to grant me the following premise: M. Night Shyamalan's first three movies were great and his last three movies were awful. If that is a shark that you are willing to jump for the sake of improv, follow me...

Shyamalan's first three movies followed The Reckoning school of improv. The characters were very well acted and their relationships were slowly fleshed out. The plot didn't matter. Take Signs for example. A lot of people claimed that the aliens were dumb. But I say, who cares about the aliens??? That movie wasn't about aliens. It was about a man and his relationship with God, his brother and his children. And those characters and their relationships were real and were never broken for the sake of a joke. Sure, the relationships were set to the backdrop (plot) of an alien invasion, but that wasn't why I loved it. I loved the characters. When Joaquin Phoenix was funny, it was because he was being REAL. Another example is in Unbreakable when Bruce Willis' character is reconnecting with his wife one night in the bedroom. That movie, to me, was about a man and his relationship with his wife and son. Throughout the course of the movie, I grew to care about him and his relationships. Sure, there was a plot, but that didn't matter to me. The plot was extra. Like icing on a cake. The relationships were what made me love it. Much the same, great improvisers (like The Reckoning) just live in the moment. The plot doesn't matter and they don't break character for a joke.

Now, I'd like to examine Shyamalan's last three movies. The Village, Lady In The Water and The Happening had so little substantial relationship it was ridiculous. They were based solely on plot. Lady In The Water, for example, was so full of plot twists and turns and never once do I remember any connections between characters with a common history. And, there were absurd characters thrown into the film for no other reason than comic effect. The asian girl who talks crazy. The guy who only works out one side of his body. It even sounds like a wacky sitcom. And The Happening was no better. For starters, Shyamalan directed the worst performance of Mark Whalberg's career, but add to that the characters that were just an attempt at humor. For instance, that one guy who kept bringing up hotdogs. Or the army private who yelled "cheese and crackers" when he got scared. It felt so cheap and jokey. The relationships never reigned supreme in these films. Instead, what reigned supreme was plot, plot, plot and joke, joke, joke. The movies were constantly about WHAT WAS HAPPENING and rarely dealt with HOW THE CHARACTERS FELT ABOUT EACHOTHER.

The worst part about these three films was the butchering of the old improv adage, "show me, don't tell me". These three films were all wrapped up by a character literally explaining what the hell had been going on the whole time. In the Village, it was Shyamalan himself at the end of the movie explaining that a rich man had paid planes not to fly over the compound. In Lady In The Water, it was the girl literally explaining EVERYTHING to Paul Giamatti who (like the audience) had no clue what the hell was going on. And in The Happening, it was a news cast at the end that explained why the plants were going nuts. In contrast, The Sixth Sense didn't TELL us that (spoiler alert) Bruce Willis was dead the whole time. It SHOWED us through a series of flashbacks. In Signs, Mel Gibson didn't TELL us what happened. We were shown, either through real time action or a series of flashbacks. In improv, nobody wants to sit and hear you talk about what you did in the past. They want to SEE it.

Well, that's my M. Night Syamalan rant. If I could have one wish, I would wish for infinity wishes. Then, with my first of an infinite number of wishes, I would wish that M. Night Shyamalan would take improv classes. I'd love to see him implement some of improv's basic teachings and maybe make another good movie. Or, if he's just going to continue to try and do crazy twists, direct The Life of Pi, because that book was awesome.