I vaguely remember this film as a child, but I feel like people started to remember this movie existed after Split, M. Night Shyamalan’s movie about a man suffering from Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID). At the end of that movie, if you recall, they show David Dunn, played by Bruce Willis, as a diner watching the coverage of Kevin on the news. Unbreakable is the intro to this phenomenon, so to speak.
First, in light of Bruce Willis’ health, it feels so nostalgic to see him in his prime. My best friend, her boyfriend, and I had movie night and watched this together for the first time in a few years for all of us. We had a few observations.
First, the camera shots. At any given time in the movie, the camera shoots gave the audience the feeling that we aren’t supposed to be in the conversation between David or Elijah or David and someone else. The shots were far and always between something. I remember a shot at the stadium with David and Elijah and the camera was between a railing. In the beginning of the movie, there was the volley shot between David and the woman he was attempting to flirt with on the bus. Later, we learned that the shot might have been us as the little girl who was watching through the space between the seats. I took it as Shymalan’s signature shot kind of like those moving shots Spike Lee does in his films. There were also the shots with Elijah where they were usually done in a reflection, which was so cool to me.
Second, we noticed the closeness of David and his son, Joseph. Joseph seemed like he didn’t like his mom at all because he was always with his dad. I can understand that your dad is your hero, as a young boy, however, we never saw this kid with his mom. And he seemed like his dad was his end all be all. They never explain why though and I would have liked to dig into that for a little bit in the movie. The scene where he got his father’s gun and loaded it to prove that Elijah was telling the truth about his dad being a real-life superhero took us out. At the moment, Elijah wasn’t even a credible source. He was just a disabled guy who loved comics and told this man and his son this incredible story. Now I get kids have vivid imaginations and being easily swayed but wanting to shoot your dad to prove a random guy right is a bit much. Because the kid had to think, “What if I and that guy is wrong?” We did laugh when he told him that he was only going to shoot him once like that was somehow supposed to be better.
Third, the twist at the end. What happened Shymalan? Did you run out of film? Did you have to hit a specific time because what was this ending? I would have appreciated the ending if there were some breadcrumbs sprinkled throughout the movie but I never saw any of what was revealed at the end throughout the movie. Besides the fact that Elijah knew of these events and how many people died, you would have never guessed the ending, and in this instance, that is terrible. It’s terrible because it wasn’t done well. That was also due in part to the fact that David had this random superpower that was never explained and a fear of water that helped us understand nothing. I guess he was going for the traditional superhero tropes of having super strength, being supernatural in some way, and having a fear or weakness. Also, Elijah why did you need to kill all these people to find this one man? What if David didn’t live near you? What if he lived in Brazil? London? Anywhere else, Elijah! Also, Shymalan, why did you randomly end the movie like this? He shook this man’s hand and saw that he was the reason for all these deaths and then the movie ends? No sir. Then it felt like a documentary ending where they tell you where everyone is after the doc. I didn’t like it and it could have been done better. All of this could have made more sense and it didn’t.
Is there anyone who remembers when this movie came out? Mind you, this was Shymalan’s fourth movie and this is the movie directly after The Sixth Sense. Did the ending make sense to anyone else? Were y’all satisfied with the ending? It’s streaming now, and yes, we will talk about Split in another post.
