Knock at the Cabin

Knock at the Cabin ★★★★

Up there with The Dead Don't Die as one of the best recent cinematic treatments of climate change anxiety. Not only does Shyamalan excel at translating the impossible yet all too familiar task of making other people trust in the reality of news reports and believe in the seemingly unthinkable into a claustrophobic home invasion thriller (those close-ups!); he also takes seriously the very human self-delusion that I, personally, will be able to survive whatever apocalypse the world is going to fling at me (climatological, nuclear, biblical, personal) and surrounds it with a strikingly effective scenario where personal and collective survival are mutually exclusive. And while I kind of wish that the ending committed to the ambiguity it seems to be hinting at initially, I also find it hard to argue with the tentative grace note Shyamalan eventually comes up with: it's a film about faith and love in the face of terrible cosmic (and human) injustice, after all – so why not posit that there is something to be salvaged? Fantastic turns from everyone involved too, but special plaudits go to Bautista and Grint.

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