Friends warned me about the twist in The Village. One went as far as to say, “It’s a great movie up until the scene involving the shed. Once you get to that point the whole thing just plummets downhill.” Others were more positive, but it was clear going in that the key plot twist either makes or breaks this film. I expected something that would undermine the premise of the movie thus far, and that’s what I got; that’s what plot twists do, after all.
The plot twist unfolded, and in its unfolding placed all of the main characters on a knife edge. Ambiguous, moral decisions full of far-reaching consequences suddenly needed making. “This is a great movie,” I said to myself. “What a challenge of a pressure cooker to put these interesting characters into.”
And then the movie suddenly ended.
There’s a certain writing criticism I’ve heard thrown about so much I consider it cliché: “Your story doesn’t have a third act.” I’m guessing M. Night Shayamalan has heard that a time or two.
Whether you want to call it the supernatural, or the science-fictiony, or the fantastic, The Village’s story is driven by the involvement of beings and rules that don’t exist in real life. That fresh and creative universe is part of what gets people like me into science fiction and fantasy. But after the honeymoon is over, after the novelty of the universe itself wears off, what keeps the story interesting?
The third act.
Shayamalan had a fantastic first two acts. He introduced compelling characters, and through the supernatural plot devices set them on trajectories where their subsequent decisions or (potential) epiphanies could change the world for everyone concerned. Where morality and altruism lie became a really sticky question.
The purpose of the made-up worlds of science fiction and fantasy, I believe, is to provide a fresh and interesting mechanism through which we experience the very real feelings and motivations and difficult choices faced by the humans in the story (whether they are said to be human or not). Sci-fi and fantasy are a different and interesting language, but they still have to say something.
Shayamalan cut the movie off before cathartic revelation could be felt by the characters, before motivations at odds could be explored, before difficult choices could be made. The story had no denouement, and so the story felt devalued.
I actually enjoyed The Village, but don’t care ever to see it again. I already know the plot twist, and aside from the purely visceral, trademark thrill and dread of Shayamalan’s films, I have absolutely no reason to watch the movie again. I already know the plot twist. I already get the idea, but since there was no exploration of the idea, there’s nothing to review, no reason to watch the plot twist again.
So if my friend who made the comment about the shed scene is reading, I have this to say: I agree with you. I’ll look back on the movie as a downhill plummet. Where we disagree is simply why and at what point that plummet happens.
I have to add a postscript disclaimer, though. I experimented with doing exactly the same thing in one of my own stories. My goal was to create a handful of characters, define them, their pasts, and their motivations. I gave their conflicting trajectories to the reader, and at the key moment ended the story. How the trajectories intersect is a question left up to the speculation of the reader. There was no third act.
So maybe that was Shayamalan’s idea, too: purposefully to leave off the third act as an experiment in storytelling.
Personally, I’d rather have seen the questions attacked and chewed on, even if not answered. The superficial daydreaming of science fiction and fantasy is justified and by the meaty questions of humanity explored at the core of the story. To run a metaphor into the ground, The Village was a flimsy vegetarian story.
