This film actively made me angry. Shyamalan has the skills to be possibly the greatest director of horror thrillers ever, but I feel like he constantly mistakes having style for having philosophical depth. In the past this hasn't prevented me from enjoying his films. So what if the symbolism is corny and obvious? So what if he's more interested in faking out the audience that in logical progression and story coherence? So what if he was constantly implying that there was some big important New Age message but in the end only delivers homilies? His films were well-acted and delivered thrills, so what difference did it make if some of his loftier ambitions didn't pan out?
LitW represents all of Shyamalan's worst tendencies taken to extremes in the context of a metafilm that raises Shyamalan to the level of intellectual Christ and devalues the humanity of his critics. It's not merely an interesting experiment that didn't work or an auteur being a little too self-indulgent...it's vile.
LitW represents all of Shyamalan's worst tendencies taken to extremes in the context of a metafilm that raises Shyamalan to the level of intellectual Christ and devalues the humanity of his critics. It's not merely an interesting experiment that didn't work or an auteur being a little too self-indulgent...it's vile.