VOD film review: The Village
Review Overview
Dialogue
5Atmosphere
8Politics
8David Farnor | On 24, Jul 2021
Director: M Night Shyamalan
Cast: Bryce Dallas Howard, Joaquin Phoenix, Adrien Brody, William Hurt
Certificate: 12
“I see the world Lucius Hunt, but not as you see it,” Ivy Walker (Bryce Dallas Howard) tells Lucius (Joaquin Phoenix) early on in The Village, M Night Shyamalan’s chilling fable about a remote community terrorised by unseen monsters. It’s not a subtle line – the film’s representation of someone visually impaired and the casting of that role could take up another article on its own – but it gets to the heart of the horror lying at the root of this haunting folk tale.
Ivy and Lucius live in Covington, a small agrarian community that lives by its own means and keeps within its own borders. For beyond the edge of the town, past the row of flaming torches and wooden guard tower, lie the forbidden woods, in which nightmarish creatures lurk – and, as long as the humans don’t cross the boundary, those nightmares abide by a long-standing truce that keeps everyone in their place.
Lucius, the son of one of the elders, Alice (Sigourney Weaver), begins to question what’s beyond their bubble of existence, only to be told by leader Edward (William Hurt), Ivy’s father, that he must forget such curious notions as they only lead to trouble. But an altercation with the troubled Noah (Adrien Brody, another piece of casting and characterisation that could be discussed at length) leads to a situation that requires medical supplies from the nearest town – and with the elders all swearing an oath not to leave Covington, it falls to Lucius and Ivy to be the ones who dare to break with years of tradition.
What ensues is an atmospheric, eerie voyage into the darkness of the unknown, and while the period-style dialogue can feel a bit forced, it’s more than made up for by the carefully crafted mood. DoP Roger Deakins plays with the red and yellow colour scheme to conjure up a silhouetted, ominous and immersive world, with James Newton Howard’s music fills with creepy dread, blending unnerving violins with rustling, scratching sound design.
And yet there’s more going on than the surface suggests, and while some might find the second half of the movie increasingly underwhelming, revisiting the 2004 thriller turns the revelations that emerge as the foundations of the film’s themes, rather than distractions for the sake of them. What begins as a study of generational trauma grows into a story about daring to go against the mythology that’s passed down from those in power – and that push-pull between the elders and the youngsters raises questions about abuse of authority and the use of fear to manipulate people. And, the more complicated the moral dilemmas become, the more apparent it is that retreating from the wider world to follow one’s own ideology, truths and agenda has harmful, pernicious consequences.
The result is a timely, and timeless, parable – and one that stands apart from the rest of Shyamalan’s work, as the twists that unfold aren’t world-changing, life-altering rug-pulls, but facts that the characters are presented with – only for them to choose to ignore them and live on in the same way regardless.