Are You Unbreakable?
Sep. 19th, 2002 10:42 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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Video Review - Unbreakable 8/10
It’s hard to describe this movie, hard to put it into a little slot. It’s about self discovery, but also a bit of the fantastic. It’s moody, quiet, very quiet, it’s not good vs. evil yet there is an element of that in it. It’s intensely personal and challenging for the two main characters. The introduction describes the number of comic books sold in the U.S. every year, a phenomenally high number.
The movie begins, appropriately, with a birth. A black baby is born in a department store dressing room, his arms and legs broken as if injured in the womb. He is Elijah and not until later do we return to his life and discover that he has a genetic disease that causes his bones to be brittle and break easily. He’s spent a third of his life in hospital beds, battling his fear of being hurt, reading comic books. He now owns a gallery called Limited Edition, selling original comic book art and collecting comics. His has been a lonely life, vulnerable to pain.
David Dodds has also led a lonely life, one that is revealed to us little by little. After the birth long ago of the baby Elijah, we are transported to the present. David is on a train which derails. All the passengers die except him. He is completely unharmed. You think, ok this will change his life. Seems like it at first too. He gets a raise at work after we realize he was on the train returning from NYC for a job interview. But the cracks show. His marriage appears to be over. He seems to be walking around in what you first assume is shock but soon realize is a chronically depressed state. After receiving a note from “Limited Edition” asking if he has ever been sick, he realizes he hasn’t. He and his son, Joseph, go to see Elijah to find out more about the note and question.
Elijah has a theory. Comic book heroes have been around centuries, right back to Egyptian heiroglyphics only now, in the 20th century, they have shifted to the hero in comics, the one with extraordinary powers. He believes these heroes have basis in history, in real life where there really are these “supermen”, who’s “powers” do exist though not in the highly exaggerated state they are depicted in the comic book world. He believes David is one of them. He’s taken aback to discover, through Joseph, that David was a college football star whose career was abruptly cut off after a near fatal car accident. He’s further convinced when he realizes David, a security guard for Temple University’s sports stadium, has a sixth sense about dangerous or disturbed people.
David’s son, Joseph, believes and worships his father in spite of the imminent family breakup. David’s wife, Audrey, is hurt and closed in on herself protectively. David has always kept both of them at arm’s length. Little by little, sometimes with Joseph’s help or forgotten memories of childhood, David begins to wonder if Elijah’s theory could possibly hold water as he almost reluctantly discovers more about himself with Joseph’s confident urging. The optimism and love of a child seems to be the only thing that David begins to respond to.
I can’t go into much more without spoiling it. As I said earlier, this is a quiet movie. There isn’t very much background noise or music at all, which gives you even more of a sense of the isolation of all four main characters. David slowly discovers who he really is for the first time in his life, possibly truly an “unbreakable” man. His life is revealed to be more charmed than we realize. Yes there were disasters and near fatal incidents, but he survived them all. Elijah lives continually close to death by injury yet manages to survive as well, hanging on to his theory that if he is ‘breakable’ there must be someone at the other end of the spectrum, and insists that David is that person. Elijah and David are alike though at opposite ends of that physical spectrum, Elijah believes, and they even have the same weakness, he discovers, water, aka their “kryptonite”.
Bruce Willis is David. He has none of his usual cocky charm in this movie, but is not wholly different than the character he played in ‘Sixth Sense’ directed by the same man that did this movie, M. Night Shaymalan. He’s sad, depressed, in a rut lower than a snake’s belly in a tire track knowing something is missing from his life but not knowing where to find it. Samuel L. Jackson is Elijah, thin, frail, yet his eyes glow with intensity, life, purpose. This is also a contrast to his usual tall, strong, aggressive movie character. Robin Wright Penn plays Audrey, who loved her husband yet has never been allowed to be close to him emotionally and has all but given up until nearly losing him in this train crash. We get the sense that she’s had the protective walls up around her soul for years, licking her wounds. The crash finally moves her to wonder if they can try one last time. Spencer Treat Clark is Joseph. He’s every bit as good as he was a few years ago when he was in Another World, an American soap. Joseph has never given up on his father, his child’s eyes and mind only use Elijah’s theory to cement his own belief that his dad is above the ordinary. He takes an extreme measure to try to prove it to his father who doesn’t want to believe it. Slowly his confidence and small innocent hand lead David to his self discovery.
There is a twist at the end that I didn’t see coming though probably should have. This is probably a very good companion movie to Sixth Sense. Though the storyline is very different it still deals with the extraordinary. Spencer Treat Clark I thought was better than the kid in SS but then I have “known” him for longer. I liked this movie a lot, it’s intriguing and so quiet that you really listen hard to it and you find yourself thinking and posturizing and trying to figure it out all through the movie. See it.
Video Review - Unbreakable 8/10
It’s hard to describe this movie, hard to put it into a little slot. It’s about self discovery, but also a bit of the fantastic. It’s moody, quiet, very quiet, it’s not good vs. evil yet there is an element of that in it. It’s intensely personal and challenging for the two main characters. The introduction describes the number of comic books sold in the U.S. every year, a phenomenally high number.
The movie begins, appropriately, with a birth. A black baby is born in a department store dressing room, his arms and legs broken as if injured in the womb. He is Elijah and not until later do we return to his life and discover that he has a genetic disease that causes his bones to be brittle and break easily. He’s spent a third of his life in hospital beds, battling his fear of being hurt, reading comic books. He now owns a gallery called Limited Edition, selling original comic book art and collecting comics. His has been a lonely life, vulnerable to pain.
David Dodds has also led a lonely life, one that is revealed to us little by little. After the birth long ago of the baby Elijah, we are transported to the present. David is on a train which derails. All the passengers die except him. He is completely unharmed. You think, ok this will change his life. Seems like it at first too. He gets a raise at work after we realize he was on the train returning from NYC for a job interview. But the cracks show. His marriage appears to be over. He seems to be walking around in what you first assume is shock but soon realize is a chronically depressed state. After receiving a note from “Limited Edition” asking if he has ever been sick, he realizes he hasn’t. He and his son, Joseph, go to see Elijah to find out more about the note and question.
Elijah has a theory. Comic book heroes have been around centuries, right back to Egyptian heiroglyphics only now, in the 20th century, they have shifted to the hero in comics, the one with extraordinary powers. He believes these heroes have basis in history, in real life where there really are these “supermen”, who’s “powers” do exist though not in the highly exaggerated state they are depicted in the comic book world. He believes David is one of them. He’s taken aback to discover, through Joseph, that David was a college football star whose career was abruptly cut off after a near fatal car accident. He’s further convinced when he realizes David, a security guard for Temple University’s sports stadium, has a sixth sense about dangerous or disturbed people.
David’s son, Joseph, believes and worships his father in spite of the imminent family breakup. David’s wife, Audrey, is hurt and closed in on herself protectively. David has always kept both of them at arm’s length. Little by little, sometimes with Joseph’s help or forgotten memories of childhood, David begins to wonder if Elijah’s theory could possibly hold water as he almost reluctantly discovers more about himself with Joseph’s confident urging. The optimism and love of a child seems to be the only thing that David begins to respond to.
I can’t go into much more without spoiling it. As I said earlier, this is a quiet movie. There isn’t very much background noise or music at all, which gives you even more of a sense of the isolation of all four main characters. David slowly discovers who he really is for the first time in his life, possibly truly an “unbreakable” man. His life is revealed to be more charmed than we realize. Yes there were disasters and near fatal incidents, but he survived them all. Elijah lives continually close to death by injury yet manages to survive as well, hanging on to his theory that if he is ‘breakable’ there must be someone at the other end of the spectrum, and insists that David is that person. Elijah and David are alike though at opposite ends of that physical spectrum, Elijah believes, and they even have the same weakness, he discovers, water, aka their “kryptonite”.
Bruce Willis is David. He has none of his usual cocky charm in this movie, but is not wholly different than the character he played in ‘Sixth Sense’ directed by the same man that did this movie, M. Night Shaymalan. He’s sad, depressed, in a rut lower than a snake’s belly in a tire track knowing something is missing from his life but not knowing where to find it. Samuel L. Jackson is Elijah, thin, frail, yet his eyes glow with intensity, life, purpose. This is also a contrast to his usual tall, strong, aggressive movie character. Robin Wright Penn plays Audrey, who loved her husband yet has never been allowed to be close to him emotionally and has all but given up until nearly losing him in this train crash. We get the sense that she’s had the protective walls up around her soul for years, licking her wounds. The crash finally moves her to wonder if they can try one last time. Spencer Treat Clark is Joseph. He’s every bit as good as he was a few years ago when he was in Another World, an American soap. Joseph has never given up on his father, his child’s eyes and mind only use Elijah’s theory to cement his own belief that his dad is above the ordinary. He takes an extreme measure to try to prove it to his father who doesn’t want to believe it. Slowly his confidence and small innocent hand lead David to his self discovery.
There is a twist at the end that I didn’t see coming though probably should have. This is probably a very good companion movie to Sixth Sense. Though the storyline is very different it still deals with the extraordinary. Spencer Treat Clark I thought was better than the kid in SS but then I have “known” him for longer. I liked this movie a lot, it’s intriguing and so quiet that you really listen hard to it and you find yourself thinking and posturizing and trying to figure it out all through the movie. See it.
