Weather, by M. Night Shyamalan, is already positioning itself as one of the most striking titles of the summer releases. One that also greens the fame of its director and his ability to create suspense mechanisms with a plot trap. Of course after The sixth Sense no one is surprised by the filmmaker’s unpredictable endings.
Even so, Weather Has Brings Debate: Shyamalan tries to baffle the audience, but he doesn’t always do it the right way. Weather it is a correct exercise terror and suspense, with a solid look at the emotional. And the combination could work in a sober ending, but again the director shakes up the storyline with something more twisted.
Weather it is based on a premise that seemingly emphasizes suspense and then progresses to the supernatural. A family goes on vacation to a beach where little inexplicable events begin to happen. As is usually his method, Shyamalan builds an atmosphere to make it clear that the story that the viewer follows includes a mystery. One so uncomfortable, inexplicable and increasingly dangerous that it becomes a real threat.
And indeed, the story reaches its highest point when the phenomenon is discovered. Something inexplicable makes everyone family members age at an accelerated rate. Every hour they age two years, turning the premise into pure horror.
For the third installment of the film the added pressure of impending death turns the film into something new. In fact, the plot accelerates and makes all the traumas and pains of the relationships that bring the characters together to surface. The combination endows Weather of a unique personality.
But that’s when Shyamalan returns to his worst decisions at the time of reveal unpredictable outcomes. In The village (2004) the excess of manipulation was criticized and in Multiple (2016) the forced addition to a larger universe.
In Weather, the turn from horror to pseudo science fiction is unnecessary. The script abandons what it had previously raised to enter the terrain of a corporate conspiracy. One that includes a convoluted idea about a pharmaceutical experiment using human victims. All the philosophical sustenance that Shyamalan had achieved collapses. From the possibility of redemption, to reflecting on the value of life, it becomes something banal.
Shyamalan’s obsession with radical plot twists
Much worse is the fact that Shyamalan uses in Weather the same method that made him famous, and that curiously almost destroyed his career. The parallels are obvious. In the classic horror The sixth Sense revealing Malcolm Crowe’s true condition was an exercise in plot intelligence. In Crystal, the final big secret about the purpose of the character played by Samuel L. Jackson ends up suffocated by the effect. And although the film manages to solve the failure with a reflection on his own universe, Shyamalan’s need to catch the viewer off guard remains.
Something between the two occurs in Weather. After an inspired construction of horror, which includes in addition to the central family amazing supporting characters, the director makes a bold decision. But in reality it is a way of unraveling what until then had been a solid narrative structure.
Suddenly, everything that until then the film had narrated falls into a conspiracy that the director eludes to explain at all. But even the explanations it provides are unnecessary, exaggerated, and hit hard at the notion about the fear it managed to create. Where then are the long emotional battles between the central family? Where do the signs go that everything is a time loop in which the explanation is the least valuable?
More surprising it turns out, that Shyamalan makes the denouement through camera turns and a quick explanation about a major event that doesn’t seem like enough. In fact, several of the critics insist that it lacks the quality of the rest of the film. Shyamalan, again, tries to surprise and without a doubt, he succeeds. But at the cost of the validity of its premise.
And in the end, ‘Time’ is left with nothing to say
Several of the most inspired and accomplished moments of Weather they involve the idea of physical deterioration. When one of the characters loses his sight and the other the ability to listen, the film becomes an agonizing harshness. And that’s when Shyamalan shows off his formidable talent for telling small stories.
The horrors of the beach, the careful way of showing them, the formidable selection of camera angles and dialogue create an ensemble of enormous beauty. But when Shyamalan decides that he should surprise, all that creative effort disappears.
Weather It ends up turned into a mistake in which the essence of its premise is betrayed. By his end, all the careful web of eloquence that Shyamalan achieved falls apart. ¿An unforeseeable surprise was necessary in a horror-tinged drama that had reached a sublime point?
For Shyamalan, Weather It is another of his great personal ventures in which he has complete creative control. Perhaps, with much less pressure to amaze and yes more fidelity to your emotional center, Weather it could have been an amazing creative piece. And it still is, but it is missed that the director had greater respect for the integrity of his story.