Courtney Howard // Film Critic
THE WATCHERS
Rated PG-13, 1 hour and 42 minutes
Directed: Ishana Shyamalan
Starring: Dakota Fanning, Georgina Campbell, Olwen Fouéré, Oliver Finnegan, Alistair Brammer
From the very first scene of THE WATCHERS, showing a desperate dude stalked by creepy creatures in a foggy forest, it’s clear that filmmaker Ishana Shyamalan understands tone and character – and, most importantly, how to make both work in concert with each other. This continual interplay between the setting’s stark isolation and the characters’ fear and grief permeates the picture. Still, it doesn’t always function at its highest capacity, especially when it comes to crafting a satisfactory payoff for its scares. As a gothic horror-thriller, it falls short of expectations. But as a clarion call – “a call coming from inside the house” – about the dangers of an imposing threat within the entertainment business, its sentiments ring alarmingly clear.
Mina (Dakota Fanning) has been aimlessly sleepwalking through life since the death of her mother 15 years ago. Running from herself and her happy memories, she’s abandoned America for Ireland. Self-abnegation has prevented her from forming meaningful relationships, let alone maintaining one with her surviving twin sister, Lucy, who’s back in the States. During the day, she works at a sleepy pet store and at night, she disguises herself in bars to hook-up with strangers. However, her life changes once a squawking, saffron-colored conure enters the picture.
Mina’s tasked to drive Darwin – as she’s nicknamed him – to a neighboring city zoo on an overnight adventure. After her car and phone malfunction, she encounters Madeline (Olwen Fouéré), an older white-haired teacher, running through the woods in the encroaching darkness, barking orders at Mina as they both rush to “the coop,” a modestly furnished cement stronghold with a giant double-faced mirror window. Mina is trapped, joining Madeline with the other prisoners Daniel (Oliver Finnegan), a soft-spoken empath, and Ciara (Georgina Campbell), a married holistic medicine healer. Every night the quartet are forced to perform for an audience of unseen, Irish folklore-born beings, who seek to copy human behavior. They can’t satiate their demanding audience forever though, and as Mina leads efforts to escape, the creeps’ threats to their safety intensify.
Shyamalan, adapting A.M. Shine’s gripping novel, does an adequate job fleshing out each of the cube’s personalities with a lean economy. Mina’s backstory, though slight and predictable, unspools in a cautious manner. And Fanning’s caustic remove works wonders, elevating the material’s muddled moments. Madeline is made the target of scorn and nitpicking, gifting scenarios with a cerebral weight. Ciara’s biggest vulnerability – her missing husband John (Alistair Brammer), seen harried and disoriented in the film’s cold open – provides the catalyst for the tension driving a sequence where the titular creatures attempt to ingratiate themselves. Daniel’s defenselessness, courtesy of his susceptibility to suggestions, takes the ultimate toll we only recognize in the dénouement.
Trouble is these elements don’t add up to much. Mina’s quest towards self-acceptance feels D.O.A. as she goes through the predictable motions, inevitably figuring out that when faced with the very real option of death, she wants to live fully again. The 3rd act is littered with maddening clichés, exposition dumps, a literal safety hatch and laughable logistics, all of which stand to drag down the narrative’s propulsive power shown in Act One. Big action set pieces also fail to connect, imparting a lackluster feeling with their reductive qualities. One sequence, where Mina and Madeline take makeshift shelter after dark in a hooded hut made of sticks, appears silly not scary.
That said, much of the suspense comes courtesy of Shyamalan exercising an assured, innate care for the craft, milking the blurred focus on background figures and their happenings juxtaposed with her subjects’ fear, or formidability, filling the foreground. She finds levity in the meta-joke of the lone DVD left behind being a fishbowl-style reality show – a crushingly relatable reality for those imprisoned (minus the contestant consent). Despite the bleak circumstances, Eli Arenson’s cinematography is full of saturated warmth within its color palettes. Immersive, 360 degree sound design and Abel Korzeniowski’s swelling score work in mischievously wicked ways, utilizing foreboding, booming woodwinds as the evil forest dwellers’ signature voice.
Given the ancient forest faeries’ magical mimicry of their imprisoned humans, it’s difficult to disguise this feature as anything but a Trojan Horse containing anti-AI commentary. The changelings show their tells as to their inhuman make-up, whether by their improperly cloned memories or their physical features. They can’t copy the humanity that makes up a person’s character. Similar to (of all things) SPACE JAM: A NEW LEGACY espousing anti-algorithmic views, Shyamalan finds some strength delivering a tangible message. It’s a shame, though, that her cunning smarts only carry her so far, as the story limps to its escape.
Grade: C
THE WATCHERS opens in theaters on June 7.
