Happy post-Super Bowl Monday! Great game with a weird ending in which the Chiefs ultimately topped the Eagles. Good for Patty Mahomes. Anyways, I caught M. Night Shyamalan’s latest movie this past Saturday at my favorite Alamo Drafthouse theater. The movie is based on Paul Trembley’s book The Cabin at the End of the World, which is honestly a much better title than Knock at the Cabin, and written by M. Night Shyamalan, Steve Desmond, and Michael Sherman. The premise of the movie is simple: “While vacationing at a remote cabin in the woods, a young girl and her parents are taken hostage by four armed strangers who demand they make an unthinkable choice to avert the apocalypse” (from Google).
I was too young to experience the M. Night renaissance of Signs, Sixth Sense, and Unbreakable. In fact, my first M. Night experience was The Last Airbender, which is the worst movie ever. The Last Airbender was also the first time I learned that movies could be bad because when you were a kid, you assumed everything in the world was good. Recently, M. Night has started to put his own money into the movie he makes, which has given him freedom from the usual corporate movie studio system. So, whether his movies are good or bad, at least they will be wholly his creative vision without “studio interference.” Given all of that, I quite enjoyed this movie.
For me, the strength of Knock at the Cabin is the simplicity of the premise of the movie. Four strangers attempt to coerce a family into an unthinkable act, or the world is going to end. Of course, with such a ridiculous belief as this, the family has to decide whether to believe these four strangers or not. And I think it is this simplicity that really lets the performance shine brightest. The lead stranger of the movie, Leonard, is played by Dave Bautista, and he gives his best performance to date. Bautista invokes great softness and empathy for a big man that is holding a family hostage. It is great seeing Bautista attempting more dramatic, complex roles to become a better actor, such as this film, Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery, Dune, and Blade Runner: 2049. The three actors who play the other three strangers are excellent as well: Rupert Grint (who everyone may know as Ron Weasley from the Harry Potter films), Abby Quinn, and Nikki Amuka-Bird. What makes their performances stand out is that their characters do not want to be here, but they are because they believe so firmly in the upcoming apocalypse. It is this internal conflict of these strangers’ convictions that brings out a great amount of fear, desperation, and sadness in these actors/actresses’ performances.
Jonathon Groff and Ben Aldrich are fantastic as the two dads Eric and Andrew, respectively, maintaining an incredible amount of intensity throughout the whole film. They are constantly juggling fear, anxiety, and skepticism as they must decide whether to believe in the upcoming apocalypse or not. Their daughter, Wen, is played by Kristen Cui, who is in her first feature role, and does a great job of matching the same intensity as everyone else in the movie. The cinematography of the movie is beautiful. From the opening shot to scenes throughout the movie, M. Night expertly uses the backdrop of the woods to his advantage to craft a wonderfully looking film.
Finally, M. Night hits the theme of faith very well. Whether or not the apocalypse is happening, the point is that these four strangers are doing a questionable thing because of their beliefs. You would absolutely do questionable things, too, if you truly believed the world was going to end. To a lot of people out there, their faith is the world to them, which is why people do questionable things, and sometimes it is hard to discern which beliefs are justifiable and which ones are not. I am not sure if I agree with the ending of the movie, but I found the performances, cinematography, and the simplicity of the movie to be very enjoyable. Go check out Knock at the Cabin if you have the chance.
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