Signs Review
by Bob Bloom (bobbloom AT iquest DOT net)July 31st, 2002
SIGNS (2002) 3 stars out of 4. Starring Mel Gibson, Joaquin Phoenix, Rory Culkin, Abigail Breslin, Cherry Jones, M. Night Shyamalan and Patricia Kalember. Music by James Newton Howard. Director of Photography Tak Fujimoto, A.S.C., Written and directed by M. Night Shyamalan. Rated PG-13. Running time: Approx. 2 hours
Like he did with the ghost story in Sixth Sense, and with the superhero genre in Unbreakable, M. Night Shyamalan now focuses his singular perspective onto the science fiction format in Signs.
Like his two previous outings, Signs uses his main theme merely as a launching pad for discourses on such philosophical tenets as faith, coincidence and fate and profound queries such as whether everything in life has a meaning or purpose or whether life is merely a collection of random events.
Despite the global implications of Shyamalan’s excursion into science fiction, his story remains intimate, focusing on a farm family in Buck County, Pa.
Graham Hess (Mel Gibson) is a corn farmer and a former minister who renounced God after tragedy visited his family.
From the opening credits, dominated by an intriguing score by James Newton Howard, Signs draws you in, holding you in expectation as Shyamalan peels his story as leisurely as if he were paring an apple.
And at the film’s very core is his premise that each action or reaction is ultimately of consequence, despite its seeming triviality at the moment, be it an old baseball bat or a little girl’s habit of cluttering the house with half-filled glasses of water.
Shyamalan appears to be striving to say something profound, but his message is as conflicted as a classical painting hand-stitched to a tacky, velvet canvas.
The fun of a Shyamalan film lies in watching it unfold. The writer-director gives you less than you want, and only enough to keep you enticed. His films are like a carrot on a string and the audience is the horse lured into motion. He keeps you on the edge of your seat, always in a state of expectation.
And this process also works in Signs — up to a point. We are teased throughout, primed for a big buildup, but finally underwhelmed by a B-movie finale that feels out of kilter with all that came before.
At times, Signs plays like a hybrid of Night of the Living Dead and War of the Worlds, but lacking the visceral impact of either. Such pyrotechnics are not Shyamalan’s style. The entire science fiction aspect is akin to the red herring in a murder mystery, diverting the audience from the true center of focus.
Signs’ payoff disappoints because it is so far afield.
The performances, too, vary. Gibson acts like he’s performing in a straitjacket, his natural exuberance abated. He looks pained, which fits his character's makeup. It is one of his most controlled outings.
As his younger brother, Merrill, Joaquin Phoenix is unfocused and portrayed as something of a screw up. He lives on the farm with Graham and Graham’s two children, and was a one-time local baseball standout. We know little else about him.
The performers who come off best are the two youngsters, Rory Culkin as the asthmatic Morgan and Abigail Breslin as the precocious Bo. Solid supporting turns are offered by Cherry Jones as a local sympathetic sheriff’s deputy and Shyamalan himself as a veterinarian whose actions greatly impacted the lives of the Hess family.
Flashes of levity run through Signs, especially from young Breslin, which compensates for some of the film’s more overwrought moments.
In the end, though, Signs leaves you a bit disappointed because the payoff you anticipated falls short of the mark. Still, even a flawed Shyamalan is a better and more interesting exercise than the vast majority of features inundating movie screens.
Bob Bloom is the film critic at the Journal and Courier in Lafayette, IN. He can be reached by e-mail at [email protected] or at [email protected]. Other reviews by Bloom can be found at www.jconline.com by clicking on golafayette.
Bloom's reviews also appear on the Web at the Internet Movie Database: http://www.imdb.com/M/reviews_by?Bob+Bloom
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