RETROSPECT: “Unbreakable” or, How to Ground Comic Book Figures In Reality

Writer-director M. Night Shaymalan has had his share of successes and failures for the past two decades since his surprise hit thriller The Sixth Sense (about a boy who sees ghosts) made an impact in the industry in 1999. Although he's made a comeback with last year's equally-terrifying Split (about a disturbed man with multiple personalities) as well as the highly anticipated release of Glass this coming winter, interest has been renewing regarding his sophomoric effort from the 2000--a story about a man who survives a train crash and discovers that he may have superhuman abilities.

Unbreakable was released at a time when superhero movies were not the norm. Blade (a half-man, half-vampire character, courtesy Marvel) had been out for two years, and it would be another two until director Sam Raimi would bring Spider-Man (also Marvel, but more light-hearted) to the big screen. In the mean time, director Bryan Singer brought Marvel's X-Men into the limelight in a new, sensational way.

What made Shaymalan's film so unique and unprecedented (and, in retrospect, perhaps his best achievement) was, as one character describes a vintage art portrait from a comic book (poetically illustrating the film itself), "its realistic depiction of its figures." Not to mention a tone that was bleak, melancholy, quiet, mysterious, at times slow, and yet contemplative and grounded. (Keep in mind, it would be another five years before Christopher Nolan would do the same thing while bringing Batman back. He and director Zack Snyder, meanwhile, would eventually, and respectfully, be some of the only filmmakers who arguably used the comic-book medium for truly artistic and thematic purposes.)

"Real life doesn't fit into little boxes that were drawn for it."

As for the film's characters, Shaymalan takes the time in allowing us to sympathize or understand where they're coming from and what they're feeling or, overall, going through.

David Dunn (Bruce Willis, in what may be his best performance, aside from the first Die Hard) is a former college football star who now works as a security guard at the University in Philadelphia. He is apparently struggling in his marriage and considers job opportunities elsewhere, until an unexpected railway crash leaves him not only miraculously alive, but unscared and unbroken.

Elijah Price (Samuel L. Jackson, ever the incredible chameleon of an actor he is) is a crippled art gallery owner who has, since childbirth, sustained multiple and numerous fractures due to a rare genetic disorder. As a fearful and sad child (other kids call him "Mr. Glass"), his mother used to motivate him with comic books to get him out into the world. (Notice in certain scenes, his character is reflected in glass mirrors or windows.) From that, he came to believe that superheroes are more than just drawings on the pages of magazines. They are ancient, mythological stories and figures that walk the earth. He even explains in two back-to-back monologues said history and its descent into commercial items. "If there is somebody like me, on one end of the spectrum," says Elijah, "couldn't there be somebody else on the other end? Someone who doesn't get hurt, doesn't get sick? The kind of person these stories are about? Someone who was sent here to protect us?"

Though he tries to deny it at first, David discovers that he may be superhuman, from how many weights he lifts, to how his instincts grow on him, to how water (from a childhood trauma) makes him weak and fearful, and even how his wife Audrey describes football as "violence against opponents." Even his security guard raincoat acts as a kind of hero costume. (A similar example can be found in 2017's Sleight, about a street musician.)

Bruce Willis

Samuel L. Jackson

"Heroes don't get killed like that. Normal people do, right?"

Elijah's worldview and statements, though intriguing, may prove, on the other hand, to be questionable and even creepy, considering how these new discoveries take a toll on David's son, Joseph (Spencer Treat Clark, whose credits also include Gladiator and Mystic River), who wants to believe his father is an extraordinary person and far from normal, and Audrey (Robin Wright, a very underappreciated actress), who wants to rebuild their marriage (a rare story element these days).

Unbreakable includes long, uncut takes that apparently resemble panels of a comic book. Notice when the camera slowly pans left or right, when it zooms in and out, at specific beats, such as when David finds a note on his car windshield. There are even point-of-view shots of characters looking upside-down. It's a slow pace, for the most part, but to reiterate, it takes said time in allowing us to feel with the characters. James Newton Howard's score brilliantly embodies these character emotions and aforementioned tones.

While advertised as a mystery-thriller (to play off the success of Shaymalan's The Sixth Sense), there are really only a couple of truly suspenseful scenes in the whole film. One involves a character who falls down a flight of stairs and breaks his legs--and shatters his glass cane. Another has David following an orange suit man to a house, where a family is being held hostage. Still, another intense scene involves a child pointing a revolver at his father to try and prove he can't get hurt.

Robin Wright and Bruce Willis

"They say this one has a surprise ending."

Shaymalan's tone remains consistent, up until the climactic twist (a trope that would become common with most of his films). This twist could even echo a significant theme from 1989's Batman: Does the "villain" make the "hero," or does the "hero" make the "villain," or both?

It's almost hard to believe that since the beginning of the decade this film was released, there's been an exponential growth in popularity and quality for superheroes and comic books in general, not to mention over-saturation. And yet, because there's so much nowadays (especially of the cartoon nature), it's refreshing that there are those types of films that transcend their genres or mediums. In that regard, films inspired by or about comics are a rare thing.

While Nolan and Snyder are brilliant filmmakers in their own right, Shyamalan may have been the first to truly ground a comic-book-inspired story in reality. He has openly stated the same about this winter's highly-anticipated Glass, which will be bringing together characters from both this film (Willis and Jackson) and Split (James McAvoy's Kevin Crumb and Anya Taylor-Joy's Casey Cooke). Until then, Unbreakable deserves another look.

"It's hard for many people to believe that there are extraordinary things inside themselves, as well as others. I hope you can keep an open mind."

REVIEW: "First Man" or, One Small Step for Filmmaking, One Giant Leap for the Space Genre

"Never before have so many people been tuned in to one event at one time." The late news anchor Walter Cronkite said those words following the unforgettable Apollo 11 mission by NASA from Earth to the moon, as well as the television broadcast that coincided with it, back in 1969. And it remains an iconic event.

What director Damien Chazelle does with the story that leads up to it in First Man (based on the bestselling biography by James R. Hansen) shows the raw and difficult reality of what NASA and the families involved had gone through, far from the victorious publicity Apollo 11 had become known for. Specifically chronicling the life of astronaut Neil Armstrong (who eventually became the first man to step foot on the then-unknown terrain) over a near-decade-long journey, it's an intense but very human story.

The screenplay (written by Spotlight co-scribe Josh Singer) chronicles how Armstrong's familial and professional lives affected him, how the losses in both lives affected him (including his 3-year-old daughter Karen, who's untimely death opens the film), and how he may have used work to stay away from the heartaches of family (or at least the memory of his daughter). Ryan Gosling (who worked with Chazelle on La La Land) is great at expressing himself, subtly yet complex, through his face and eyes, for almost any role he plays, and this one is no exception. (Ditto for The Crown's Claire Foy, who's just as dynamic, as his wife, Janet Armstrong.)

As he did with Whiplash (2014) and La La Land (2016), Chazelle pulls no punches on the central raw emotions here, despite some quick transition cuts between years of failed tests and familial/personal heartaches. Consider a scene where Janet forces Neil to prepare their children for the possibility that he may not come home from the Lunar mission, as previous losses during launch tests have proven.

Many even question (as they did at the time) if all that NASA was doing, financially and personally, was worth the risks and sacrifices. Some would even call it a waste of resources. But as Armstrong states earlier, "This mission may allow us to see things we should have seen a long time ago, but we just haven't been able to until now," foreshadowing the notion of being more than just "the first" to do something unprecedented. Or, as John F. Kennedy would declare, a belief in our "progressing as a nation".

From frame one, you feel as if you're right up there with the astronauts themselves. Case in point: the opening test flight. Shaky camera techniques and tight framing on display make the experience (and film) claustrophobic at times, not to mention very immersive, compared with, say, Apollo 13 or Gravity. Ditto the Gemini 8 launch sequence, or the signature Lunar sequence (beautifully filmed with IMAX cameras).

Ryan Gosling

The filmmakers made a smart choice to shoot on film, as it puts viewers in the period of the 1960s. And yet, the story, strangely, doesn't feel dated, thanks, in part, to stunning cinematography (e.g., blue light shots) by Linus Sandgren (echoing Kubrick and Malick), production design by Christopher Nolan collaborator Nathan Crowley, heart-pounding sound design by Ai-Ling Lee, and a score by Justin Hurwitz that is beautiful, haunting, and astounding. The aforementioned moments are recreated as if we're witnessing history-in-the-making, or the early days of the space program for the first time. Either way, it leaves you breathless.

Out of the many space-related films to have come out this decade (Gravity, Interstellar, The Martian, Hidden Figures), this film is, perhaps, the most grounded and the most intense. Chazelle's approach is fresh, brutally honest, and on-the-edge-of-your-seat. It's involving and moving, to the moon and back.