Knock at the Cabin

 

M. Night Shyamalan's films strike me as more inspired notions than fully formed projects, and yet they never fail to intrigue. 

I might be responding to the absence of sturdy connective tissue between elements in many of his films. I often don't have a complete understanding of the mythology (or science) behind all of the weirdness that Shyamalan likes to explore. This is very much the case with his latest picture -- Knock at the Cabin.

Jonathan Goff and Ben Aldridge play Eric and Andrew, respectively, parents of the precocious Wen (Kristen Cui). While collecting grasshoppers near the family's vacation cabin, Wen meets the towering but soft-spoken Leonard (David Bautista). Leonard and his three friends (Rubert Grint, Nikki Amuka-Bird and Abby Quinn) say they have come to the cabin after seeing horrifying apocalyptic visions containing orders to execute a plan to save the world. 

Eric and Andrew mistake this intrusion for a home invasion, in many ways it is, and greet the four messengers with distrust and derision. The four say they have been chosen to see that the cabin family sacrifice one of their own to save the world. It's an absurd conceit and one that the cast is only partly successful in conveying, but, again, this is Shyamalan's territory, and he handles absurdity with ease.

Audience members who are imbedded in loving families will no doubt respond with virulence like Wen's two dads, who suspect, additionally, that the visitors have targeted them because the family is headed by gay men. Flashbacks to a hateful attack in a bar offer a bit of insight into the couple's suspicions. Other scenes are not as meaningful and seem to have been tossed in for color and not context -- Eric and Andrew getting baby Wen, Eric meeting Andrew's parents. 

Shyamalan's fans looking for his famous last-reel reveals might be surprised that Knock at the Cabin contains no plot twists or big "ah-ha" moments. Despite the incredulity expressed by Eric and Andrew, this is indeed a Doomsday rumination with all of the dread and misery that portends and with a message about duty and sacrifice that is murky, at best.