The Curator: lessons from M. Night Shyamalan's terrible movie endings
seeking books to surprise and enrage featuring Rumaan Alam, Haruki Murakami, Stephen King, Sarah Waters, and more
One never goes to see an M. Night Shyamalan movie expecting to be pleased. Instead, we seek to be enraged by his god-awful twist endings. When we walk into a theater or flip on the telly, we never know just how we will be tricked, us lowly peasant consumers, but we know that we will and that we will like it even if we also hate it.
Shyamalan’s newest film, The Trap, gives ‘90s heartthrob Josh Harnett a chance to play the most suspicious of characters - a middle-aged white man with serial killer potential re: the following facial expressions
The movie is outlandish. Trap is a psychological thriller where police attempt to capture a raging serial killer by laying trap at a pseudo-Ariana Grande concert. Already SO MANY PROBLEMS. The suspension of disbelief required to enjoy this movie is one most other filmmakers could not get away with - and with such sincerity!
But nobody goes to see a Shyamalan movie for its realism. The point IS to be infuriated - by the solutions, by the sudden transposition of framing or orientation generally occurring in the last third of the film. We often think we are building to a supernatural or metaphysical answer, and instead, it’s just good old capitalism or human nature. It’s not the film’s fault, but our own expectations. As one critic at Vulture says about Shyamalan movies, “…the issue wasn’t what they were but what I wanted them to be1.” Trap is no different, but unlike Reviewer Matt, I didn’t expect it to be. It was an insanely fun time because I accepted my fate like this guy
seeking uncertainty in art
Reading all the terrible reviews got my hackles up, thinking about the reasons we seek certain types of media and art. I Googled “Why do we like M. Night Shyamalan,” and the results told on themselves:
Whatever qualms you might have about an individual movie - plot, script, believability - Shyamalan certainly commits - to the project, to the weirdness, to the twist. Thematically, most movies are cohesive, the cinematography is good to excellent, and I don’t hear a lot of issues with editing or other technical aspects. It’s the story that gets us angry, that makes us want to throw the metaphorical movie out the window.
If this is so, why do we keep seeing his movies? And why do we also seek out novels with similar enragement factors? My theory: we want predictability in our stories, we seek comfort, but we also need to be shaken out of our stupor occasionally. Please, someone subvert our expectations! Slap us out of complacency! Give us what we need, not what we want! Comfort stories are great (see me Watching below), but regular life doesn’t give us all the answers. This isn’t The Matrix and there is no blue pill. For the brave, this kind of art calls to the chaos deep within our souls.
who is the M. Night Shyamalan of novels?
How many times have you read a Stephen King novel and thought, what the actual fuck? His stories frequently suffer from the same Shyamalan outlandish endings, and yet he’s firmly in the top 25 top-selling authors OF ALL TIME. A personal favorite - the plot resolution of It (I won’t ruin it for you; Google it if you never plan to read the book; it’s wildly different than the movie adaptations and flabbergasting, honestly).
Other similar storytellers with functionally spiteful endings include Rumaan Alam’s Leave the World Behind, Ian Reid’s I’m Thinking of Ending Things, and Paul Tremblay’s The Cabin at the End of the World. Unshockingly, all three of these novels were adapted for the screen (Tremblay’s by Mr. Shyamalan himself!). I would also include Haruki Murakami, specifically The Wind Up Bird Chronicle, with its venture into the void; The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters, with its gothic promise and haunting payoff; and The Last House on Needless Street by Catriona Ward, which has one of the most controversial endings I’ve ever seen discussed on Bookstagram (like honestly the hate for this book is intense).
The common theme with this list is How are they going to explain this and they either A). don’t or B). unsatisfyingly. These stories are not for all readers - you must be comfortable with ambiguity, satire, and/or suspension of disbelief so enormous that you eventually come back around to shrugging it off (similar to what happens with a certain candidate these days). But the payoff can be worth it. When I finished The Wind Up Bird Chronicle or Leave the World Behind, I looked at life and society differently. A hole had been poked in my world view.
To wrap this up, I want to emphasize that these stories are in stark contrast to effective twist endings that leave us satisfied, such as Carrie, Gone Girl, Shutter Island, or even the one that started it all, The Sixth Sense (everyone is allowed one shining moment!). There is a clear resolution and explanation that structurally makes sense. We love that for us, obviously. What I am advocating for instead is injecting a little chaos into our day, if only for a few hundred pages.
Have you read any of these books? Are you a chaos searcher or a comfort seeker (or both)?
READING 📖→
Finished Will & Testament, what a beautiful, surprising book. Tightly constructed and plotted, I was hypnotized by Berglot’s testament of abuse. The way Hjorth used repetition, weather elements, temporal confusion, and weaponized emotion was masterful. I highly, highly recommend, especially now during Women in Translation month!
Over halfway through The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead and I have been transported. I totally see the hype. It’s a tough subject for review, but so far, I am most appreciating the way the story presents as layers wherein each time we think the MC is one step closer to freedom, within the dynamic power structure, she hasn’t really moved at all.
WATCHING 📽️→
Gilmore Girls. Sometimes, I get on a rewatching kick, usually about the time my anxiety ratchets up and I need soothing. It’s problematic! It’s outdated! It’s Junk Food for the Soul!
BOOKS IN MY SHOPPING CART 🛒→
In honor of Women in Translation Month…
Lady Joker by Kaoru Takamura (Japanese) - I got excited like I haven’t in a while after reading this description by Tess Lewis: Based on an unsolved true corporate kidnapping in 1980s Japan and with an intense focus on the marginalized and disaffected left behind in the postwar economic boom, this novel is as much a psychological as a crime thriller. Takamura also offers up a stirring dose of social critique with a plot that traces the tentacles of corporate corruption, organized crime, caste and ethnic discrimination, shadowy right-wing nationalists with ties to high-ranking politicians, and ambitious newsrooms wending their way through Japanese society. The page count is the only issue (600 pages x 2 volumes!). Still, I love the Tokyo Vice vibes.
A Little Luck by Claudia Pineiro -
loves Pineiro so I want to love Pineiro. This one is about my favorite things like lies, deception, and intrigue: life is neither fate nor chance, it’s a little luck.The Dangers of Smoking in Bed by Mariana Enriquez - Loved her novel Our Share of the Night and this collection of stories sounds like more of the same: disturbed adolescents, ghosts, decaying ghouls, the sad and angry homeless of modern Argentina.
I Who Have Never Known Men by Jacqueline Harpman (French) - a dystopian feminist post-apocalyptic speculative epic, it’s like all my favorite things at once!
BOOK NEWS & RESTACKS 📰→
love notes 18: saying hello to my thirties (Substack)
Are novel covers alienating male readers? (Substack)
we need to talk about August (Substack)
Modern Torture Device: Part One (Substack)
AND CATS 🐈⬛→
Francis Forever. RIP, little one. 🖤
LET’S CHAT 👻→
Do you watch M. Night Shyamalan movies? How much do you hate them?
Best recs for women in translation month?
What are you reading currently, and is it any good?
In Case You Missed It 🖤
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See you around the bookshelf!
A very good review of Trap https://www.vulture.com/article/trap-is-good-and-so-is-m-night-shyamalan.html
Loved the theme. Nothing engages me more in the story than a good mistery, even when the end doesn’t payoff.
For the woman in translation month, as a brazilian reader I feel this is my time to shine and reccomend some books from latin america.
- Hour of the star - Clarice Lispector - great way to start Clarice, short book.
- The girl in the photograph - Lygia Fagundes Telles - one of my favorite brazilian writers. Sadly I think this is the only translated book, but her short stories are also great.
- The head of the saint - Socorro Aciolli - fun and enganging read.
- House of the spirits - Isabel Allende - magical realism and family drama. Paula also written by her is in my TBR
- Bad Girls - Camila Sosa Villada
- Things we lost in the fire - Mariana Enriquez - short stories. I really liked this and the dangers of smoking in bed.
I liked Shyamalan’s The Village and loved Signs!!