To Live Out in the Woods

I’ve given M. Night Shyamalan a lot of shit on this site in the past, largely because I feel like he’s a one-trick pony who could do so much better. The man has a strong eye, can get great performances out of his acts, and really knows how to compose his shots. Sometimes he even writes solid, believable characters. Plus, he self finances every film he makes now, putting his money on the line. It’s hard to be mad at that, and honestly I respect the fact that he makes the films he wants to make, no questions asked.

The issue is that, above all else, he prioritizes twists in his scripts, thinking that because his first films, like The Sixth Sense and Unbreakable, were successful because of their twists, every film he makes has to have a twist in it as well. After a while it became predictable, and then tiresome, and at this point it really feels like it holds back everything he works on. At this point it’s hard to see the name “M. Night Shyamalan” on a film and not feel instant regret for what you’re about to endure. M. Night Shyamalan making a film is more of a dare at this point, a temptation to see if this time it will be as bad as you imagine. And then, usually, it is.

The Watchers isn’t an M. Night Shyamalan, technically… except, really, it is. He produced it, and it’s the theatrical screenwriting and directorial debut for his daughter, Ishana Night Shyamalan. To its very core it feels like an M. Night Shyamalan film, from its creepy ambiance to its story that drips information out, leading you closer and closer to that twist you know is coming. And then, when it happens, you have to roll your eyes because it doesn’t really add anything to the film, it just feels like a twist for twist’s sake. This might be Ishana Night Shyamalan’s film, but the apple hasn’t fallen far from the tree at all.

It is telling that Ishana Night Shyamalan has basically been under her father’s wing this whole time, working on his films (as a second unit director), writing and directing on his shows (where he acts as showrunner), and directing music videos for her sister, pop star Saleka Night Shyamalan (who also is managed and produced by M. Night Shyamalan). Everything about this film feels like M. Night Shyamalan carefully managing his daughter’s career, leading her up to this point so she could have her chance at fame. The Watchers should be her chance to break out and do her own thing, to put her own spin on the Shyamalan, but, like everything else released by the Shyamalans so far, this is very much a family affair through and through.

The problem with The Watchers isn’t that it’s a bad movie throughout, just that it eventually becomes one as it plods towards its inevitable ending. It starts decently enough with our protagonist, Mina (Dakota Fanning), going through the motions of her life. She lives in Galway, Ireland (despite being American, a detail that isn’t explained in the film), working at a pet shop that she clearly doesn’t care about. At night she goes out, pretending to be anyone other than herself, while she hooks up with men at bars. She’s adrift, unable to find herself after the death of her mother fifteen years early, estranged from her twin sister, Lucy, and not sure who she even wants to be anymore.

She’s sent out on a delivery to take a special parrot across the countryside, but she ends up lost in a forest. Her car breaks down, her phone goes out, and it seems like she’s stuck in the middle of nowhere, a detail only affirmed when she (and the bird) walk ten steps away from the car to look for help, only to then lose all sight of the car, never to find it again. She’s taken in by some strangers, though, who help her into a concrete bunker with a giant window on one side, and it’s revealed that the forest is magical and populated by “Watchers”, beings that come out at night and watch the humans living in the concrete house. This is their life now, nightly amusement for the Watchers, and unless they can find some way to escape, they’ll be stuck there forever.

The Watchers is based on the novel of the same name by A. M. Shine, and from what I can tell the movie follows the basic beats of the book. So the issues I see in the movie largely (although not entirely) stem from the issues in the novel. It’s an overwritten affair that, at the same time, has huge logic gaps that make no sense, and it starts right at the premise: the forest is magical, and anything with power won’t work. Except there’s the concrete house (which, we eventually learn, has a bunker underneath it) which does have power. Someone had to get the materials out there to build the house. Someone had to find a way to get power. Someone had to put in all the effort to do all this while, to be clear, the Watchers were out there, waiting to kill them when evening came around.

How does any of that work? The film doesn’t answer it, in large part because the novel didn’t answer it. In neither case, though, is this good storytelling. Without even getting into the many spoilery twists and turns of the movie (which actually feels like it’s trying to feint towards a different twist that doesn’t happen, which might be even more annoying, frankly) the simple fact is that the premise itself doesn’t hold up, not as the film goes on and its whole reasoning becomes more and more convoluted. The film works when it’s a simple tale of people stuck out in the magic woods with no way to escape, but the second it tries to be more than that it all falls apart.

I don’t blame the cast for this. They’re doing their best with a film that, honestly, doesn’t give them a lot to work with. Fanning is good as Mina, but Mina herself is both underwritten and overwritten. She has a tragic backstory, with the death of her mother. She’s a tortured artist trying to find herself. She likes to go out at night and pretend to be other people. And yet none of this actually touches upon her character as she’s sullen and withdrawn and pretty basic, all things considered. Fanning is a good actress so she’s able to add life to Mina, but that doesn’t make the Mina of the film good, it just shows that Fanning is too good for this film. And it’s pretty much the same for all the cast; they’re good, despite how underwritten their characters are.

That is also a credit to Ishana Night Shyamalan as, among the many things she’s clearly learned from her father, she’s picked out how to get good performances out of her cast. She has her fathers eye for staging, for production values, for composing a fantastic shot. The Watchers is a handsome film, and that’s a credit to Ishana Night Shyamalan (although I suspect, since this feels very much like one of his films, M. Night Shyamalan was probably watching over her shoulder the whole time).

But at the same time, Ishana Night Shyamalan (and, presumably, her father) picked this film to adapt, and so all the flaws of the work are on her as well. She saw something in this novel that was worth adapting, and yet she didn’t find ways to improve the narrative or make things more sensible. If anything (and, again, I’m avoiding spoilers here), she actually added in more complexity to feint at a different twist that the film never pays off. The whole plot, from what the Watchers are, to how they relate to the characters we know, feels like it’s aiming us directly as a twist that would make sense and feel in line with the characters. And then it just… doesn’t do it. I have no clue why the film would set all this up to then not pay it off, but I have to assume this is the “twist for twist” sake mentality that seems to be a Shyamalan.

It’s clear that Ishana Night Shyamalan is a talent behind the camera, and if her father wants to keep throwing money at her career to help her get her start, that’s his prerogative. He funded this film just as he funds so many of his own, so whatever he wants to do with his cash is his business. But despite all this, The Watchers isn’t good. It’s handsome, yes, but narratively shallow and pretty stupid. It’s a vapid void, a soul-sucking affair that leaves you feeling dumber even as it tries to act like it was so smart.

Audiences weren’t buying it, with The Watchers only making $33.4 Mil against its $30 Mil production budget, making it a certified flop at the Box Office. Which I guess means that M. Night will have to try again if he wants to give his daughter her career. The Watchers certainly wasn’t her vehicle to success it was meant to be. Who knows if that feat will ever be accomplished.