Review

Review Date: 22-March-09
Spoiler Rating: Medium
Juju Judgment: Just OK

Knowing (2009)

Knowing stars Nicolas Cage as a recently widowed scientist whose son (Chandler Canterbury) receives a strange message from the past. The boy's elementary school digs up a 50-year-old time capsule in which former students placed their visions of the future. Instead of a drawing of a robot or spaceship, Cage's son gets a sheet of paper covered with numbers. Implausibly, it takes only a few hours and a spilled glass of whiskey for Cage to discover that the numbers are dates of catastrophes resulting in multiple deaths. For example, 9/11/2001 is on the list with the exact number of fatalities. The last three entries are for dates that are just about to arrive. The discovery spurs Cage to try to prevent the tragedies and challenges the cynicism he has felt since his wife's death about the futility of existence. His confusion deepens, along with his panic, as he meets the grown daughter (Rose Byrne) of the girl who wrote the list and they realize that the final entry predicts everyone on Earth will die. It does not help that his son and Byrne's little girl are being haunted by strange men. Is anywhere safe? What is Cage meant to do? Is knowing the truth more important than following the instincts of flight and protection?

I tend to prefer my disaster porn without the metaphysical speculation in which Knowing is steeped, yet I cannot deny being engrossed throughout the film. It kept me curious about what would happen next and when I would get to see a landmark or city being blown up or evaporated. (The answer: not till the very end, although there are some shocking localized catastrophes before then.) True, a lot of the movie runs on horror tricks like prolonged anticipation, darkness, and creepy voices, but they serve some purpose. The more nettlesome problem is one which plagues most movies in the M. Night Shyamalan vein which try to be spiritual or cerebral rather than escapist: the story falls apart under unhurried scrutiny. What you swallow in the theater to keep up makes no sense when considered afterward. In this case, I rebelled even during the show against an apparent answer to the question "Why life?" which is only a perpetuation of the question itself, using stale religious iconography at that. Later, I wondered why the mysterious men at the center of Knowing didn't take what they needed and go away without all the fuss that comprises the plot. Why list? I do not know. At the very least it provides a couple hours' distraction.

Copyright © 2009 The Jujube (M. I. Kim). All rights reserved.