The Village

What’s the Story?

The people of the village of Covington have an uneasy truce with creatures who live in the woods that ring their town. Fear keeps most residents well inside the boundaries ringed by flags, but reckless teens dare each other to test the boundaries, and developmentally disabled Noah (Adrien Brody) doesn't always do what he's told. The story centers on sisters Ivy (Bryce Dallas Howard), who's blind, and Kitty (Judy Greer). Both are drawn to Lucius (Joaquin Phoenix), but he only has eyes for Ivy. Lucius angers the creatures by venturing into the woods, and there's an attack. But then something else goes very wrong and someone else must enter the woods...

Is It Any Good?

Producer/writer/director M. Night Shyamalan is in some ways the victim of his own success. He's under a lot of pressure to keep pulling surprise endings out of cinematic hats. The problem is that an expected surprise is, in addition to an oxymoron, inevitably disappointing. Yet he knows how to use the camera to tell the story and has a sure control of tone and pace, alternating gasps and laughs to keep things moving. The heart of the movie is Dallas Howard (daughter of actor/director Ron Howard) as Ivy, who is always fresh, touching, and real.

The plot is a familiar yet compelling quest into the woods, a soul journey, and we get a nod to that when a young yellow ridinghood (red upsets the creatures) enters the woods on a mission of mercy. Shyamalan is not, well, afraid, to take on some big notions about fear and inhumanity and he creates characters we are willing to trust and care about.