Filmmaker M. Night Shyamalan is known for his sense of mystery and for his genius storytelling twists. From The Sixth Sense, The Village, Signs, Unbreakable and many more of his films, Shyamalan has a gift for telling out-of-the-box stories where you don’t know where the story is heading. It is thanks to this that his films are quite highly anticipated. The only problem though is that some of his films are like an acquired taste, you have to be in the mood to watch them. This is by no means a bad thing, but it just means that his unorthodox approaches can sometimes be a slow burn and the pacing may sometimes be a little off. This is sadly the same with his latest film, Knock at the Cabin.
Knock at the Cabin has a fantastic cast of characters, with Dave Bautista, Rupert Grint, Nikki Amuka-Bird and Abby Quinn playing four mysterious characters who visit a couple in the woods who are currently staying in a cabin. The couple in question are played by Jonathan Groff and Ben Aldridge, who together have a daughter Wen, played by Kristen Cui. Wen and Bautista’s character, Leonard, are the first characters we see together and the conversation that plays out feels uneasy, tense and mysterious. From the moment the four strangers enter the cabin this sense of the unknown gradually lessens. The four of them want to avert the apocalypse by letting the family sacrifice one of themselves in order to save the world. What sounds like a killer concept descends into a puzzle box of questions.
The film is mainly set within the cabin, and there are some tense moments and some flashbacks too which help explain how and why the couple are there to begin with, but the pacing and the plot keeps on flowing back and forth as the film asks whether the apocalypse is really happening or whether it is just luck that the four strangers happen to be there when major catastrophes are happening around the world. The uncertainty of what is true or false is intriguing to say the least, but the characters keep throwing plot holes at each other and it soon becomes irritating that they’re constantly questioning each other instead of exploring some weighty themes such as religion and identity. The film is based on a book so I do not know if the same can be said for the novel, but by the end you can’t help but feeling a little bit underwhelmed.
The highlight of the film is Dave Bautista. This is a man who has flexed a lot of acting muscles in his short but apprehensive lifetime as an actor. From Guardians of the Galaxy to Blade Runner 2049 and recently Glass Onion, Bautista is on fine form. He has a sense of seriousness and world-weariness in his role of Leonard in Knock at the Cabin. Despite the film’s shortcomings, you can’t help but root for Leonard and hope that he makes it out alive because even though he’s playing a bad guy so to speak, despite this he also has a sense of warmth about him. This comes across with his connection to Wen which feels more paternal than creepy, which makes sense considering his character is meant to be a school teacher. Overall, the other characters do a fine job of keeping the story moving, but it just doesn’t have the momentum to sustain the whole film.
★★☆☆☆
2/5
Final Verdict:
Knock at the Cabin is one of M. Night Shyamalan’s simplest films he’s made. The ‘less is more’ trope to storytelling is great for character development but narratively it doesn’t achieve as much as it wants to. Knock at the Cabin skims around some important and timely themes, and by doing so it sacrifices any relevance for connecting to some of the minor characters. Some terrific performances don’t help the slow plotting, but it is Bautista and Cui’s characters that shine in this dismal script and help bring a bit of life into this lifeless story.
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Alex Murray, the Head of Eyesight Productions
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