By David Dent
For his fifteenth directing credit M. Night (just Night to his mates, apparently) Shyamalan has, for the first time, adapted a novel as the source material for his film, namely Paul Tremblay’s ‘The Cabin at the End of the World’. He’s also broken with a tradition associated with many of his previous features; no ‘twist’ ending this time.
Knock at the Cabin loads its plot pivot very early on in the movie. Dads Andrew and Eric (Ben Aldridge and Jonathan Groff) are hanging out at a summer cabin with their adopted daughter, Wen (Kristen Cui). Their peace is shattered by a group of initially threatening but increasingly benevolent strangers, headed by the gruff but conciliatory Leonard (heavy du jours Dave Bautista, most recently seen in Glass Onion), who break in, tie up the dads and explain the reason for their visit; in order to avert forthcoming world populace annihilation, one of the three members of the family must sacrifice themselves. Failure to do so will result in Andrew, Eric and Wen being the only people left alive on the planet.
The moral conundrum arising from this ultimatum – surely the worst Scruples card game scenario ever invented – provides the majority of the dramatic heft of the movie. In setting out the options, Night is asking the audience, “well what would you do?”, but the director’s intent is also to draw – admittedly extreme – parallels with the world’s dilemma in the face of inevitable climate change; do you give up your own comfort to help the planet as a whole have a future?
Whether you warm (no pun intended) to this setup rather depends on you swallowing the basic premise of one group of strangers convincingly providing a deadly ultimatum to another. Andrew and Eric’s ‘personal vs global’ dilemma is underscored with selective life flashbacks showing them struggling for acceptance, first as a gay couple and second as parents to an adopted baby, and a series of events in which Leonard and his crew point out – increasingly graphically – what’s at stake.
There are some good performances here, stand out being first timer Cui as a young girl struggling to understand what the grown ups are talking about; and the film largely gets by in the relief that Shyamalan has made a film that, while still coming across like an extended The Twilight Zone episode, at least gives us a premise we can relate to.
Knock at the Cabin is released in cinemas on 3 February 2023.
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