Movie Review
A new Shyamalan director can't make The Watchers watchable
Dakota Fanning in The Watchers.
Director M. Night Shyamalan made his name with twisty stories like The Sixth Sense and Unbreakable. His output since has been up-and-down, but he’s still shown the capability to surprise. He has passed on his love for a specific type of filmmaking to his daughter, Ishana Shyamalan, who has now made her first feature film, The Watchers (her dad, naturally, serves as a producer).
Based on the book of the same name by A.M. Shine, it centers on Mina (Dakota Fanning), an American inexplicably working in a pet store in Ireland. Assigned to take a bird to a zoo in another city, Mina embarks on a road trip that somehow results in her traveling deep into a forest, where her car promptly dies and she loses cell service. Forced to travel by foot, she happens upon a mysterious small building inhabited by three other people: Ciara (Georgian Campbell), Madeline (OIwen Fouéré), and Daniel (Oliver Finnegan).
That building has few amenities, but it does have a giant glass wall that at night acts as a two-way mirror; they can’t see out, but creatures known as “The Watchers” can see in. During the day, the foursome is free to roam the forest, but only so far as various signs saying “point of no return.” While the other three, who have been there for different lengths of time, seem to have resigned themselves to being trapped, Mina takes it upon herself to try to find a way to escape.
Like her dad in many films, Ishana Shyamalan starts out her initial offering strong, with an intriguing premise and a likable central character. A voiceover by Mina before anything actually happens gives perhaps a little too much information up front, but not enough to dull the concept as a whole. The same goes for an opening scene in which an unknown person is pursued in the forest by mostly unseen creatures, creating a solid tension.
However, when Mina actually gets to the building, Shyamalan seems to take all the momentum out of the story. While not being able to see the creatures makes for some anxiety-filled moments, not much actually happens for much of the first hour, and the lack of action starts to make the story feel tedious. When a big event comes, it takes place off-screen, a weird act of pulling the rug out from under the audience that serves neither the film nor its viewers well.
Shyamalan also includes a number of elements that either don't connect to the larger story or exist mainly to interest her. Early on, Mina is shown dressing up in a wig and pretending to be someone else at a bar, a character trait that seems to have no point even when the film touches on a similar nerve. Shyamalan brings fairy mythology into the story, but the details of it are too dense for the film she’s making; if they served a greater purpose, they are lost amid everything else going on.
Fanning, who recently had a great part in the Netflix limited series Ripley, is fine in the lead role, making Mina into a sufficiently interesting heroine. Campbell, Fouéré, and Finnegan also make the most of their roles, but there’s just not enough on the bone for them to be overly memorable.
Say what you will about M. Night Shyamalan’s films, but at least the vast majority of them remain thought-provoking for most of their running time. Ishana Shyamalan’s first film does not measure up to even her dad’s most middling output, filled with curious decision-making that robs the film of most of its possible suspense and thrills.
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The Watchers is now playing in theaters.
