UNBREAKABLE: How M. Night Shyamalan’s Career Survived Flops and Stood the Test of Time

There aren’t many working filmmakers I admire these days more than M. Night Shyamalan. He came on the scene in the late 90s with the surprise smash hit THE SIXTH SENSE. To most filmgoers, it was his film debut though he’d actually directed one movie before, WIDE AWAKE with Rosie O’Donnell. I’ve never seen it nor have I met anyone who has. But his second, the Bruce Willis-starring ghost movie, put him on the map. It earned a Best Picture nod, not bad for a quasi-first film by an unknown director. Still, there are as many one-hit wonders in Hollywood as there are in the music industry.

Next, Night earned his place in the cinematic arena with UNBREAKABLE, a smarter, more complex film than its predecessor. It probably disappointed and confused some audience members at the time but it’s had a long shelf life. He followed it with SIGNS, a good but over-praised sci-fi thriller, and THE VILLAGE, a good and under-praised movie that is harder to categorize. Things looked a little shaky but still promising. In retrospect, I think Night was trying to top himself with every movie and that can be a destructive mindset.

And then his career tanked with LADY IN THE WATER, literally one of the worst movies I’ve ever seen. It was so bad that I didn’t see a Night movie for many years. I watched (and cringed) from afar as he gave us THE HAPPENING which everyone told me to steer clear from, THE LAST AIRBENDER which looked silly in all the wrong ways, and AFTER EARTH which probably sounded good on paper but seemed to sink his career to new lows.

After four misses in a row, one more than MLB players get, Night made a little movie called THE VISIT. It wasn’t on my radar when it came out but slowly I started to hear things about it. People said it was a sort of return to form from the guy who had once been considered the new Hitchcock. Years later, I caught up with the film and, except for the ending, it’s an entertaining, sharp thriller. During the years, he made SPLIT and GLASS. The former put him back on the map. Audiences and critics paid attention again. But I was less interested in each individual one of Night’s films and more intrigued by the evolution of his career.

Most promising young directors don’t survive a flop or two (never mind four in a row!). Just look at Ben Affleck. After the one-two punch of GONE BABY GONE and THE TOWN followed by an audience pleasing decent best picture winner, ARGO, he stepped in mud with LIVE BY NIGHT and still hasn’t recovered. Of course, bad life decisions and playing Batman didn’t help but he’s just one of many directors who haven’t been able to bounce back from a bomb. M. Night Shyamalan was resilient. He survived nearly a decade of failure. He’s the career equivalent of those guys in boxing movies who get beat to death and somehow come back in the final round. Thankfully, it looks like Night has many rounds still to go.

I actually enjoy his work now more than I did before. With OLD, he basically made an extended TWILIGHT ZONE episode. Some people consider that a criticism. It wasn’t a perfect film but it held my attention. I was engaged and sometimes intrigued. That’s more than I can say about most of the crap that comes out these days. He made KNOCK AT THE CABIN in the same vein. It’s like a TWILIGHT ZONE episode on steroids and one of my favorite films of last year. That one had me on the edge of my seat from minute five till the climax.

What I love most about Night’s career now is that he’s just making movies, not masterpieces. He’s out there just trying to tell us a good story, just trying to entertain and occasionally scare our pants off like that one uncle who told the spooky tales around the campfire. It doesn’t matter if his next film TRAP is good or bad, if it’s a hit or a flop. He’s proven that he’s here to stay and I admire the hell out of him for that.

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Photograph attribute: Universal Pictures.