M Knight Shyamalan is a director for whom I have an unjustifiable adoration. He has not had any significant commercial or critical successes since ‘The Sixth Sense’ and his career has almost been ended by a series of mainstream debacles where he even caused a Will Smith action film to fail. All that being said, there are few Directors I have more respect for their artistic vision and ability. Few that I admire their skill to use the medium of film to express their art. Shyamalan is an unparalleled storyteller and is capable of capturing nuance and substance, no matter what the box office craves. His films do follow a formula: the slow burn of exploring characters and rolling out a story, excruciatingly slow at times, culminating in a big surprise payoff. He’s at his best when he uses his story telling prowess to de-construct the art of the story. As a fellow comic nerd, his exploration of the comic art form in ‘Unbreakable’ connected with me. He used this story 20 years ago to deconstruct comic book films before comic book films were even a thing. Way ahead of his time.
Last year’s ‘Split’ was widely acknowledged as his return to form. The surprise mid-credit reveal, that the main character was linked to the ‘Unbreakable’ universe caused fans to rejoice and eagerly anticipate the meeting of the characters of Mr Glass, David Dunn, and The Horde. I think what confounded the casual movie goer about these films is that they expected a ‘super-hero’ movie when that’s not what these are at all. If you go to ‘Glass’ expecting a major super-hero blockbuster, you will be disappointed. It is a character study and examination of what goes into making a super-hero mythology. In ‘Unbreakable’, Mr Glass (a brilliant comic art collector with extraordinarily brittle bones) is determined to find a reason for his pained existence. He is convinced that comics were based on exaggerated reality. He reasoned that if someone like him existed, then there must be others. He fashioned himself a super-villain and his mass homicidal tendencies landed him in a psychiatric prison.
The film opens 20 years after 'Unbreakable' with David Dunn (Bruce Willis) now patrolling the streets using his power of intuition to capture bad guys. This power leads him to the multi-personaged Wendell Crumb (James McAvoy), who had kidnapped a group of girls to feed his “Beast”. Their confrontation lands both David and Wendell in the same psychiatric hospital as Mr Glass (Samuel L Jackson) and in the care of Dr Staple (Sarah Paulson), a clinical psychologist who specializes in patients who believe they have extraordinary abilities. Dr Staple’s sole goal is to understand why these three think they have super powers and hope to cure them of their delusion.
I will repeat from my review of ‘Split’ that James McAvoy deserves an Oscar for his portrayal of Wendell Crumb. McAvoy flows seamlessly in and out of characters, each with a distinct identity (and sometimes with different languages). He reveals himself for the true actor he is. However, the star of every super-hero film (even this one) is the villain. Jackson’s damaged Mr Glass is a true mastermind and he sees the arrival of Dunn and Crumb as part of a larger story unfolding. Demented or not, Glass is an inspired genius whose sole goal is to see the culmination of the story with a climatic battle between Dunn and Crumb (or as he prefers, The Overseer and The Horde). The fact that life is rolling out like a comic book story gives him his raison d’être. If what he believes is true then he understands that his existence was not a mistake.
I won’t go into anymore of the storyline as anyone who knows anything about Shyamalan films, its all about the subtle twists and turns. It’s about the surprise of reality not being what we expected or thought. For a comic nerd such as myself it was a delight to see Mr Glass's reality through his prism of comic book expression. He planned and understood events through how the stories he loved so much played out. The characters are without a doubt extraordinary, but are they super-hero level. Dr Staple examines this and causes the characters, and the audience, to doubt if this is indeed the case. I say characters, but Mr Glass is the only one with the intellectual fortitude to believe he is exactly who he believes himself to be.
Again, don’t go to this expecting a fast paced, big budgeted super-hero film. Shyamalan is a Director from a bygone age when Directors expressed their artistic vision and storytelling as opposed to churning out big studio inspired formula films. I’m not sure why the critics haven’t been kind to this film as I had nothing but respect and admiration. I don’t think this film is for everyone, but if you like M Knight Shyamalan you won’t be disappointed
I give this film *** 1/2 stars out of 5
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