Finally, M. Night Shyamalan got in on the joke. One assumes he has, at least, thanks to his latest, The Visit — a small-budget found-footage film that brings him back to his roots of quasi-surreal horror, all with an added dash of absurdity confined inside. It may be a nice change of pace for the much-ridiculed filmmaker — now basically the punchline/punching bag for the worst cinema has to offer lately — but, beyond some clever switch-ups and some fantastic performances, it still doesn’t nicely add up to anything worthwhile.
Separating from home at 19, Loreta (Kathryn Hahn) severed any-and-all contact with her parents these past 15 years. She’s never even had a conversation with them after their absence from her life, and that includes any contact with their grandchildren either, including her eldest daughter, Rebecca (Olivia DeJonge), and her youngest son, Tyler (Ed Oxenbould). Seemingly wishing to make amends, Loreta gets a letter from them one day requesting to have the kids come up to their isolated rural Philadelphia farmhouse for a week. Obliging with mild trepidation, they’re sent a visit, and Rebecca, who hopes to make a prize-worthy documentary in the process, records whatever she can.
Soon after they meet, it’s evident Nana (Deanna Dunagan) and Pop Pop (Peter McRobbie) aren’t quite right. Their behavior is constantly erratic, from temporal behavior shifts to shouting at pedestrians on sidewalks, and nothing settles well with Tyler. They are just old, he’s told by his sister and mother again and again, but as Nana and Pop Pop only become more strange, being senior citizens doesn’t cut it as excusable reasoning. Only as the days continue do they both realize they’re fighting with fate, but by then, it may be too late.
It’s great to see Shyamalan, for once, self-aware. It’s been nearly 13-15 years since he’s produced something noteworthy, and coming from After Earth, The Last Airbender and The Happening, it’s refreshing to finally laugh a little with the director instead of just at him. His new film is intentionally kookier, and he purposefully plays with exceptions from his work only to satisfyingly serve something unexpected. There’s a stronger sense of self here, and he’s perhaps coming into his own in exciting new ways. He's tickling with his creative potentials and lavishing on where he can get his unusual voice heard. It's exciting when he gets it right, and he does get right more than a few times.
If he only got himself a better writer than himself. His characterizations, while far better fleshed out than any other characters he's created this past decade, constantly leave something to be desired. Rebecca, with the vocabulary of a tenured Harvard professor and a camcorder better than any a 15-year-old could ever own, and Tyler, a constant wise-cracker with desires to become a rap protégée on Tyler, The Creator’s level, never feel like relatable teens. They seem too stringent, too carbonated, at every moment. They don’t come across as natural as Shyamalan wants them to seem, and this kills the authenticity the director wishes he had.
Not helping either is his inability to commit to the strict found-footage formula. Between opening credits distractingly overlapping over beginning scenes and exterior shots which the kids never could've captured, it feels like Shyamalan is trying too hard to settle with a semi-relevant genre rather than using the technique to do something effective. At times, it allows some interesting retrospectives from our two child leads, and Dunagan’s character too, but often these scenes feel too far-and-between. It doesn’t fit with his impulses, though it does occasionally lead to some fraught atmosphere and intense enclosures.
Doing what they can, though, our four primary actors each make the most of what’s available to them. Dunagan's the standout, committing completely to the physical and heavy emotional demands. But not to be shortsighted, DeJonge similarly proves herself a versatile young talent. Well, whenever her character doesn’t hide behind the camera. Oxenbould is forced with the comic baggage, but doesn’t bulk at the challenge of making Shyamalan’s written jokes funny (even if he’s unsuccessful), and McRobbie, finally given his moment to shine in the last 15 minutes, becomes the real highlight of the movie’s insanity.
Then, though, there’s the twist — the type you thought Shyamalan put behind him at this point. One you should have seen coming — if you happened to predict seeing one in the first place. It’s standard affair, as far as these kinds of flips go. Although it lets Shyamalan get only crazier, which adds more ludicrousness, and it's fun to see the director go full-out bonkers. But by tacking on a boring message about the importance of family in the last five minutes, it loses itself again. It also signifies why this movie doesn't work. The director may be in good spirits, and has a better idea of what he wants to come up with than ever, but he still doesn’t know what’s good for him. He can’t escape some of his deepest thematic flaws, if The Visit is an ultimate indication, and that’s a real shame.
He knows better now, and he’s ready to make better films with more creative freedom in his grasp, it would seem. He has the power to make not quite another Sixth Sense, but perhaps something above the cookie-cutter horror features we’ve grown to expect in mainstream cinema. It’s not a matter of confidence, but rather learning to accept what he does best and what doesn’t help him along the way. Only then will Shyamalan make a return worth visiting.