Being an M. Night Shyamalan supporter is a lot like cheering for a professional Vancouver hockey team. A very long time ago we were on top of the world but, a few close attempts later, all that remains are the distant memories and the frustrating present.
Like the Vancouver Millionaires’ Stanley Cup win in 1915, Shyamalan’s masterful The Sixth Sense amazed the world when he was only 29 years old. Although there were close attempts to recreate that magic in Unbreakable, Signs, and The Village, the filmmaker never received the same acclaim or box-office success.
Recent years have been tough. Ticket sales are down. Support has been dwindling. The lowest point was when Columbia Pictures didn’t even advertise the director’s name on any of the promotional material for After Earth. Imagine watching a sports team too embarrassed to wear their own jerseys. He was at that point.
I mention Shyamalan’s infamous history because I think it’s crucial to understanding not only the charm of The Visit, this small found-footage horror/comedy, but also what makes me enthusiastic about its successes and willing to overlook some of its obvious failures.
This is by far the funniest film he has ever made. It may not be one of his best, but it is still a welcome and delightful return to form from a writer-director whose self-seriousness became self-parody. In his recent travesties — After Earth, The Last Airbender, and The Happening — we laughed at Shyamalan. But in The Visit, we laugh with him.
Thankfully, whenever The Visit verges on self-importance, it lightens the mood with self-reflexive gags, ridiculous payoffs, and absurd imagery. The characters don’t lend themselves to drama as much as Shyamalan would like, but he exploits some of their quirks for humorous situations, one of which is among the most hilarious moments in any film this year.
Rebecca, an aspiring filmmaker that is the director behind this film’s found-footage conceit, and her brother Tyler, a wannabe rapper who uses pop singers’ names as swear words, meet their grandparents for the first time when their divorced mother goes on a vacation with her new boyfriend. Years earlier, the kids’ mother had a fight with her parents; they haven’t spoken in years. The children stay on the farm, spend time with their grandparents, and try to take the first steps in mending their broken family. But soon after their arrival the grandparents act bizarre and violent.
The mid-section of this film is devoted to drama and characterization, but it drags because we don’t buy either of the protagonists. Dialogue has never been Shyamalan’s strong suit, so Rebecca and Tyler are too much like a middle-aged perception of children rather than realistic, relatable kids. Tyler, an eight-year old, correctly uses the word “mise en scène,” and Rebecca, fifteen, constantly talks about the “cinematic” quality of an image and how she doesn’t want to use a certain composition because it’s “exploitive.” This is annoyingly unnatural.
Despite the emotional immaturity and willingness to redeem Rebecca and Tyler’s mother after already subverting any attempts for a climactic family group hug, The Visit is consistently entertaining even though an uneven middle act drags with weak characterization. But even then, it’s still good enough to make you see dead people — glimpses of an M. Night of old.
