5) Signs (2002): The Last Supper
From the Hitchcock style opening credits, to the stellar performances from its two child actors, M. Night Shyamalan’s Signs begins and builds brilliantly – intricately even. It is superbly scripted (“that’s everything from Dr. Bimboo for now”), worryingly believable and, most notably, incredibly human.
This combination plays out perfectly during a dinner scene, in which there is a sense that this is the family’s ‘last supper.’ They know that the crop circles outside their house are alien navigation points, and thus that they can expect their close encounter at some point within the next few hours. At first, there is silence around the table. Then, after his young son brutally accuses him of allowing their mother to die, Mel Gibson’s patriarchal Graham breaks his usually mild persona, refusing his family’s request to say a prayer at even this, most desperate of times, and demanding ruthlessly that they eat.
The children are crying and his brother is silent as Graham aggressively attacks his meal. But as his anger turns helplessly to tears, his son comes to his side and puts his arms around him. Finally, all four of the family members are sobbing quietly together – just as the baby monitor registers interference, informing them that time is up.
Emotional engagement had not been one of Shyamalan’s regular calling cards (and it is generally thought that Signs ultimately fails because of it), but here the sub-story of Graham’s struggle with his faith has a perfect meet cute with the main narrative. Shyamalan manages to draw four convincing emotional performances out of his cast at once, and sets them directly against that culmination of tension which he does do so well. It is a scene that not only confirms what we already knew of Shyamalan, but that also suggests what he might yet be capable of.
Sadly, however, the promise of Signs ends here. The ending is not only weaker again than its predecessor Unbreakable (which in turn had not quite matched the deft brilliance of The Sixth Sense), but it is riddled with the sorts of problems that are inexplicably at odds with the Shyamalan of 1998 and 2000. The title of Signs was prophetic. Shyamalan had shot himself in the foot with his first two films, and Signs represents the last, dying vitals of those skills. By the time we’d suffered through The Village, The Lady in the Water and The Happening, we’d be excused for thinking that he was actively trying to fail.