Directed by M. Night Shyamalan
Language: English
Year: 2023
Shaun’s Rating: 1.5/5 ★
Before Watching:
Knock Knock. Who’s there? Unfortunately, it was me, at the 42nd Street AMC to see this thoroughly disappointing film. I—like many thriller fans—have been giving M. Night Shyamalan too many chances for redemption after a barrage of flops, and I decided accordingly to strap in for his newest blockbuster with an open mind. Shyamalan (admittedly, a true cinematic visionary) has a nasty habit of straying out of his depth into topics that he just can’t write well, ergo anything regarding the apocalypse. For those who never saw The Happening (2008), count yourselves as lucky.
Knock at the Cabin centers a young family of three on a getaway in rural Pennsylvania. Seven-year-old Wen is chaperoned by her two fathers, Eric (Hamilton’s Jonathan Groff) and Andrew (Ben Aldridge), on their stay in a remote cabin. Their nuclear family dynamic is wholesome, with Wen’s inquisitive nature offsetting Eric’s soft-spoken poise and Andrew’s headstrong candor, but it is also regrettably familiar and stereotypical. I understand that same-sex parents have limited real estate in pop culture, but did they seriously need to recycle Mitch, Cam, and baby Lily from Modern Family? Parallels notwithstanding, the vacation takes an unexpected turn when four foreboding strangers arrive and force entry into their abode. The Deadpan-tastic Four—led by the stoic Leonard (Dave Bautista) and featuring… is that… bloody hell, it’s Ron Weasley (Rupert Grint as Redmond)—claim that the family must sacrifice one of their own to prevent the apocalypse. Somehow, Grint’s acting is markedly worse now than when he was a child, but Bautista is quite convincing in his grizzly-bear-with-glasses aesthetic, serving Dwayne “The Knock” Johnson chic. Pop off, Blade Runner 2049 (2017).
It's difficult to explain my objections to the film without spoiling anything, but I’ll try to tread carefully through a few lighter comments for this Before Watching column. One such comment regards the film’s unbalanced focus after the aforementioned ultimatum: Shyamalan chooses to spend the vast majority of remaining screen time probing the question is this threat real, instead of the question could a family possibly make such a sacrifice. While the former question makes for good fantasy intrigue, the latter would provide a far more interesting human struggle that could’ve added some visceral motivation to the plot. Harping on the veracity of the threat begins to feel exhausting and over-analytical very quickly, as we’re provided minimal window into the second-order decision making of Andrew and Eric. Still, Shyamalan’s calling card suspense is strong and palpable (especially through the recurring technique of extreme, unsettling close-ups), but the lack of consistent and believable emotion makes it difficult to feel any deeper sense of conflict.
Are there some clever shots and intriguing plot points? Of course. Does the movie as a whole make sense? Not at all, and even less so when you dive deep. I’m happy to explain more in the After Watching column, but Shyamalan errs in creating a thriller with no subtlety or room for imagination, and a disappointing set of takeaways. In case you haven’t already guessed, an uncomfortable amount of the film’s subtext is inherently religious (Andrew and Eric… Adam and Eve?), and the messaging is… well, let’s go with tangled. Ultimately, Knock at the Cabin isn’t nearly as airless as The Last Airbender (2010), but it certainly felt like contracting Cabin Fever. And to think, this overtook Avatar: The Way of Water in the box office? Perhaps the apocalypse is upon us…
Knock at the Cabin premiered in New York in January, and can now be seen in theaters nationwide.
After Watching:
For starters, M. Night Shyamalan fumbles by holding the audience’s hand through the full movie. Every detail is explained in excess, from Andrew spelling out observations that the audience and Eric would have just noticed themselves (e.g. “They have weapons!” and “The broadcast had a prerecorded banner!”) to that horrific Four Horsemen bit. Notwithstanding that the four human traits described actually don’t track to the canonical four horsemen of the apocalypse, the heist-movie-like explanatory flashbacks are overkill.
Even the ending is intentionally made more explicit than in the original book. The Cabin at the End of the World (the film’s literary inspiration) doesn’t take a concrete stance on whether the impending doom was real or not, but the movie sides on the affirmative. I’m not such a cinematic snowflake that I judge all films on their messaging, but when you go out of your way to alter a pre-existing conclusion, I withdraw some lenience. I’ll admit, I was already disappointed that the intruders were correct and that the whole invasion wasn’t simply an elaborate, bigoted torture ploy1, even though the connection between the intruders’ deaths and the four “plagues” was tenuous at best. But the sheer laziness with which they justify Eric’s self-sacrifice (i.e. “I saw something in the light”) is mind-boggling. Instead of supporting the decision with proper screen time and emphasizing Eric’s devotion and love for the continued well-being of his family, the film crams the full discussion into a few lines of dialogue and plays his celestial vision as the trump card.
Knock at the Cabin can be interpreted in many contexts, with one prominent option being self-sacrifice in the name of the greater good. In a world with issues like climate change calling for individual moderation and restrictions, the film’s commentary on the urgency of protecting the many is perfectly clear. But when the credits roll, what does Shyamalan have to say about this? Perhaps that some zealots are worth capitulating to and meeting beyond halfway, or that everyone needs a gun to protect themselves from the crazies and Q-Anon followers. Or, perhaps he is claiming that none of us are exempt from the need to sacrifice (even a modern same-sex couple). Unfortunately, by removing the humanity and discussion from Eric's decision, it dampens his actions with the subtext that he (a gay man) is giving up his family—and by proxy, his family’s very identity—for the deity he possibly hallucinated, in an already religious soundscape. This ending loses cabin pressure.
The film is particularly jarring in comparison to the HBO apocalypse drama The Last of Us, on air at the same time. The show’s third episode “Long, Long Time” debuted in the two weeks between Knock at the Cabin’s premiere and its U.S. release, showcasing a far more elegant same-sex story before an armageddon backdrop. Hopefully we can someday reach a less embattled equilibrium where these messaging nuances are less objectionable, but for now I’m not answering the door.
Why they even bothered to develop Redmond’s true identity as Andrew’s assailant if it never mattered is also unclear.