After watching M. Night Shyamalan’s 1999 film “The Sixth Sense,” I returned to the theater three more times to see it again. The second time was to confirm that what I thought the ending revealed was actually what it revealed. (It was still the early days of the internet, so I didn’t have Wikipedia to crossreference with my experience.)
After confirming that what I saw was what I saw, I went twice more, just to sit in the back and watch the crowd’s reaction to the twist at the end. It was a gradual reveal. But one by one, on cue, the necks of moviegoers began to slowly turn their heads to the people they had come with. Jaws dropped. Faces contorted into nonverbal questions:
Is? Was he? The whole time?!
“The twist” became Shyamalan’s signature. I went to his next few films just for the surprise reveal. Sometimes it was satisfying (“Signs,”) other times (“The Village,”) not so much.
Shyamalan continued to release films at a steady clip, but over time, I stopped watching them. I’ve heard from more astute film-critic friends that I didn’t miss much.
But I didn’t stop watching because of their quality, or lack thereof. I did so because of the type of movie watcher they turned me into.
Being on high alert throughout an entire movie, looking for clues that might help unlock the twist, is exhausting. I needed a break.
It must have been exhausting for Shyamalan as well, as he apparently abandoned the technique as a primary feature of the stories he told. The twists were still there but took a backseat to other elements.
I returned to viewing Shyamalan films with last year’s “Knock at the Cabin.” The experience wasn’t the same as with his earlier films, but it was enjoyable enough for me to give “Trap,” released in the U.S. earlier this month, a try.
“Trap” stars Josh Hartnett as Cooper Adams, a Philadelphia firefighter. Most of the setting for the film is at a Lady Raven concert, where Adams has taken his daughter, Riley, as a reward for getting good grades. Lady Raven is a pop star played by Shyamalan’s daughter, Saleka Night Shyamalan.
Shyamalan pitched the film to the studio as “Silence of the Lambs set in a Taylor Swift concert.”
Upon entering the concert venue, Cooper notices an unusually high level of security. He discovers from a loose-lipped vendor that the FBI had evidence that The Butcher, a notorious area serial killer, would be present at the concert.
The non-spoiler spoiler heavily implied in the film’s trailer is that Cooper is The Butcher.
The film follows Cooper as he looks for ways to get out of the venue with his daughter (who is unaware of his identity) without being caught. “Trap employs several tried-and-true and tired devices to move the story forward and keep the audience on the edge of their seats. But Shyamalan is self-aware and uses these techniques to give a nod to his audience, letting them know that he is in conversation with them.
There is a twist, but it isn’t central to the story. What is, however, are the revelations about Cooper’s backstory.
A key figure in the film is Dr. Josephine Grant, an FBI profiler played by Hayley Mills. Grant has unlocked Cooper’s life story with clues from his previous murders. She remains in the shadows throughout the film, and her understanding of what makes The Butcher tick is an essential element to the climax of the plot.
“Trap” is unlikely to win any awards and I’ll be shocked if I remember seeing it five years from now.
But when I walked out of the film, I realized something that would outlive any memory I had of what I had just sat through: The magic of Shyamalan’s early movies had nothing to do with innovative plot twists. Instead, it had everything to do with removing the scales from viewers’ eyes, allowing us to see what was in front of us the entire time.
Shyamalan circumvented this with “Trap,” letting us know that Cooper was The Butcher early on. With that out of the way, we were only left with the questions of how he would escape and more importantly, what brought him to this place.
Character studies in Shyamalan’s work remind us that there is so much more to distinguish humans from others than just DNA and fingerprints. We are a strange mix of all the things that have ever happened to us and all the ways we have been conditioned to respond. We also reflect the image of God from which we were created.
In a 2008 interview, Shyamalan said it is a common misperception that “all my movies have twist endings or that they’re all scary. All my movies are spiritual.”
Understanding the backstories of, and the image of God in, the people we encounter is a spiritual practice. It is a practice Shyamalan’s work can help us hone. Knowing the “why” behind what people do doesn’t mean we don’t hold people accountable for their actions. But it can help nurture a sense of grace that all the great wisdom teachers, including Jesus, encourage us toward.
Senior Editor at Good Faith Media.
