The Summer of Shyamalan: The Watchers (2024)

Patrick and Taylor have five seconds before the door is sealed.

Patrick: Taylor, it's time for the second entry in our Summer of Shyamalan series. This week, we're covering the debut film from Ishana Night Shyamalan, The Watchers. I was excited about The Watchers! I shouldn't have been. I feel like the movie let me down and I let myself down by being excited.

Taylor: To jump right into being a Negative Nancy, I wasn't let down because I didn't expect to like it. As I teased in the last installment, I have never liked Dakota Fanning, and I also didn't find the trailer to be very interesting. Now I know that that's because, well, the movie isn't very interesting!

Patrick: Before we begin, I feel like you should explain your issues with Dakota Fanning to the folks at home.

Taylor: What is there to even explain, really? I don't know what it is, I have just always found her grating. I just looked up her filmography to try to identify a source and I can't. I just distinctly remember having that fully formed opinion for as long as I can remember. And you know what? As a film critic, I still stand by it! We recently watched Ripley and it all came flooding back. I just find her incredibly detached, cold, and unmotivated. (As in, her performances lack a driving force. I'm not so cruel that I'm attacking her work ethic.)

Patrick: At your core, you're just a Dakota Fanning hater. I can appreciate standing by it. I've recently realized about myself that, at my core, I'm a sucker for a good one-line premise. An elevator pitch. The idea of "Unknown creatures watch and stalk strangers at a cabin in the woods" just works for me! I wish it didn't! I guess that's how I always get roped into these Shyamalan movies. And why I always walk away disappointed.

Taylor: Disappointed is a particularly good word for this film because is it heinous? No. Is it the worst film I've seen this year? No. But the best way to describe it is...well, a literal waste of time. As in, my time has been wasted. I gave you 102 minutes, and you squandered it on nothing of note. It was slow, impossible to try to figure out on your own (what happened to clues and mystery? It's not a mystery if the director holds ALL of the cards!) but yet also very obvious in some aspects. I kept hoping it would go somewhere, anywhere, and it just...didn't.

Patrick: Typically, I would say that it's unfair to compare an artist's work to the work done by their more established, more experienced parents. Should we compare Maya's performances to Ethan's or Uma's? Of course not. But Ishana Night Shyamalan has created a film that feels so much like one her father could have made, in just about every way, from conceit to twist to aesthetic to awkward dialogue, you simply can't help but make the comparison.

Taylor: You're exactly right, which is why I had the recurring thought from the moment that the film began (and when the horrific outer-inner-monologuing began...), "I can see M. Night reading this and loving it." It falls into all of his old traps.

Patrick: I feel like we should say that, yes, there is a signature twist and yes, we both saw it coming from a mile away. While walking to our car in the parking lot, I turned to you and said, "Did you figure it out when *redacted for spoilers* happened?" You screamed YES! And there were still 45 minutes and an entirely new setup left! If your thriller isn't thrilling and your mystery isn't mysterious, what are we left with? The Love Island jokes?

Taylor: Let's get into the Love Island of it all. Watching them watch a recreation of the greatest reality tv show of all time was so absolutely shocking to me that I genuinely had trouble focusing the rest of the movie. I kept being like...so is that it? It's just a giant commentary of people who consume reality television? They show this absolute rip-off twice and then never revisit. It is one of many holes that go unexplored and have no payoff.

Patrick: I suppose it's a metaphor that implies we are The Watchers when we watch reality television. But I'm not just a watcher, I'm a podcaster. Where's THAT metaphor, Ishana?

Taylor: Absolutely. And trust me, that came across loud and clear, but it feels like a bizarre thing to comment on in this set-up. She doesn't criticize what's weird about this consumption, nor does she explore the implications.

Patrick: It's definitely "Hey, aren't artificial intelligence and consumerism and reality television and grief and religion and science and higher education just CRAZY?" And it's like...yup!

Taylor: And does it feel a bit odd to you that this lackluster criticism comes from someone who is not only less famous than her father, but is new to the scene herself? I'm sure her father's fame has impacted her in some way, but it just feels like it was made by someone who perhaps feels as though they're a fish in an aquarium but just...isn't.

Patrick: Alright, decide now what's next in our Summer of Shyamalan. Signs? The Village?

Taylor: My heart is saying The Happening, which I love deeply to my core for all the wrong reasons, but we just watched it not too long ago, and I feel like we should do something I haven't seen yet, which would be The Village!

Patrick: See you then, folks!

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