In the Dead of Night

I’m not really a believer in the fact that some people just “lose it”. I think if you have talent, you keep it, but often you forget what made you talented in the first place. The more you try to rediscover it, the harder it gets to find.

Which brings me to M. Night Shyamalan, a man who seems, without question, to have “lost it.”

Shyamalan, who’s attempt to rebound from a string of suspense movie misfires, saw his summer action blockbuster The Last Airbender receive the kind of critical panning usually reserved for Uwe Boll, then followed it up by producing Devil, based on a story he conceived. Devil hasn’t fared too well critically, but its Rotten Tomatoes score is at least in the double digits so Shaymalan can take it as a step in the right direction after Airbender.

What the hell happened?

It isn’t just the change in opinion that’s surprising (his last four movies have been terrible, after all), but it’s the animosity with which audiences now come after Shyamalan. When trailers bearing his name appear, audience members routinely boo, laugh, or groan.

And maybe he does deserve it. In the years post-Signs, Shyamalan has made films that I haven’t just hated, I’ve despised. Movies that make me wonder how they could’ve gotten a green light. There have been times when I thought it wise to implement a law where in order for Shyamalan to make another movie, he would have to make a charity donation that matched the budget of the film. That way at least someone would get something out of it. This is a director who is responsible for ruining a beloved cartoon franchise (Airbender), created a film where a central plot point hinges on falling toast (Devil), and made a movie where I actually didn’t want to stare at Zooey Deschanel (The Happening), which I thought was impossible up until that point.

But despite all these failings, somehow I can’t bring myself to hate the man. It isn’t like he’s the neighborhood kid who breaks your window playing ball in the street; he’s more like the dog you trained to go to the bathroom outside, but keeps pissing on your couch. And it’s all the more disappointing because you know he knows how to do it correctly, so you still feel bad after chastising him. Shyamalan has become a directorial equivalent to Weezer. His work now almost devalues the better work he made in the past because we know where he will end up.

Shyamalan is a good director when he is working within parameters that suit him. Tiny films, stories that involve only a few characters and how they relate to each other in the face of changes to their world. Small scale suspense. Regardless of how you feel about the ending of Signs and its message, the first 3/4 of that film are beautifully directed, a crash course in suspense and misdirection.

The problem is not just that Shyamalan has painted himself into a corner as the “twist ending” guy, but more so that he hasn’t really done much to get himself out of that corner. That is, believe it or not, why Devil is disappointing. This seems like the type of film he could’ve really run wild with, a nice concoction of Hitchcock’s Lifeboat and Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None. But Shyamalan isn’t content to play on a small scale any more, and thus, he keeps getting himself into a territory he can’t handle as a writer or director.

He also desperately needs a script editor, or someone to at least help him manage and execute his screenwriting and direction. Much was made of his split with Disney over their ‘creative differences’ with the Lady in the Water script, but that’s really what he needs. Someone to tell him when his dialogue is too ridiculous or dumbed down, someone to point out that there’s one twist too many. He needs someone to remind him that he isn’t God’s gift to cinema, but that he still has the tools to make decent films.

For the time being, I’m disappointed. But deep down, something inside me really hopes he can find that spark again to turn out something worthwhile. That’s something you can’t lose.

Then again, maybe Weezer’s next album really will be a return to form…