Credit – Touchstone Pictures
‘Unbreakable’ is a movie that came out in 2000 by M. Night. Shyamalan and starred Bruce Willis and Samuel Jackson. It was not an initial hit when it came to the theaters, doing just under 100 million in domestic box office, but quickly became a cult hit with comic book fans after its initial release. One of the reasons it might not have been a hit was the audience was still riding the high that was ‘The Sixth Sense’ from a year before, and thought they were going to get more of the same. They did get more of the same, it’s just that the audience didn’t quite understand the movie and its purpose. ‘Unbreakable’ was an unbreakable story of the love of comic books and the comic book form. The feeling I got from the movie, was M Knight Shyamalan was making this movie because he needed to. I think this was his passion project and it shows in every frame of this movie. But that’s just my point of view. ‘Unbreakable’ had everything going for it. It had the same director, who was a virtual unknown before ‘Sixth Sense’, the same actor Bruce Willis, and a great supporting cast. In addition, the marketing for ‘Unbreakable’ was just as good as ‘Sixth Sense’ with classic subterfuge and a story that we couldn’t quite pinpoint until the very ending. A classic M Knight. Shyamalan technique. As genius and entertaining as ‘The Sixth Sense’ was, with its surprise gotcha at the end, ‘Unbreakable’ was just as, if not more, an example in great storytelling. The difference with ‘Unbreakable’, however, is that it was made for a more specific audience…the comic book fan boy. This, along with M Knight. Shyamalan’s apparent love of the comic book medium, makes this an instant classic and heads above the rest.
The Quintessential Comic Book Fan Movie
‘Unbreakable’ was a love letter to comic books, in my opinion, and told a very basic story about good vs evil. More importantly, however, is how two people evolve into the hero and villain that they are and how they are inextricably linked to one another. The story was well woven and beautifully written with great subplots, character builds, and arcs. The opening scenes in the movie told us what the movie was about from the get go, but in classic M. Night Shyamalan fashion, we don’t connect those shots until the end of the movie with a collective…”oh, yeah, that makes perfect sense…why didn’t I see that coming?” kind of moment.
“There are 35 pages and 124 illustrations in the average comic book. A single issue ranges in price from $1 to over $140,000. 172,000 comics are sold in the U.S. every day. The average collector owns 3,312 comics and will spend approximately 1 year of his or her life reading them.”
Seeing that on the big screen, was literally the first and last time my mouth was wide open in awe during a movie. From that opening sequence, the movie was speaking to me and how I felt about comic books and their importance in our American culture. That opening sequence was emotionally visceral and raw for me because it hit home a place that I deeply cared about. I knew, instinctually, that this movie was going to be great, because M. Night. Shyamalan was speaking from his heart and love of comic books. Comic books for me were a way to escape the world around me, and bring me to a place of adventure, fun, hope, and heroism. ‘Unbreakable’ unfolds from that opening sequence pretty quickly and we begin to understand the importance of hero vs villain and how comic books conveyed those two very different personalities.
Elijah is the Force That Drives ‘Unbreakable’
‘Unbreakable’ is a story about two men, on opposite ends of the spectrum, but both with the same goal…to find their meaning in life. David Dunn,
Credit – Touchstone Pictures
played by Bruce Willis, is an average man, who lives a pretty ordinary life, has marital problems, and an average job in security. On his way home from a job interview, David is in a train derailment, in which he is the only surviving passenger and the only passenger with not one injury. The doctors, nor David, can explain this abnormal occurrence of apparent indestructibility, but suddenly awakens David to many unanswered questions about his past life. Elijah Price, played exquisitely by Samuel Jackson is, in my opinion, the most significant character in the movie. M Knight. Shyamalan takes great care in introducing the character of Elijah Price. His character, introduced at his birth, showing the struggles he will undoubtedly have, defines the obstacles Elijah must overcome just to get to the answers he’s looking for. The audience has a much more intimate relationship with the character of Elijah, and we see and understand why he evolved into the villain that he is. This, compared to David Dunn’s character, who we are introduced to as a grown adult. Elijah Price’s character is born with a rare degenerative bone disease that makes his bones extremely fragile. As a young child, we see Elijah afraid, jealous, and angry of his debilitation after a recent break of his arm, and refuses to go outside with the other kids and play. In one of the best scenes in the movie, which helps define Elijah’s path, Elijah’s mother explains to him that if he succumbs to his fear now, he will always be afraid. She encourages Elijah to fight that fear by giving him a present that is waiting for him, outside on a bench, in the middle of a crowded playground. Elijah fights his fear, reaches the bench, and proceeds to open his mother’s gift. What we see inside is a special edition comic book, that on the cover, depicts the traditional hero vs villain. This scene defines Elijah’s character throughout the rest of the movie and helps us understand his evolution into becoming David Dunn’s antithesis.
Opposite Ends of the Same Curve
Promotional drawing by Alex Ross
Credit – Touchstone Pictures
After the train derailment, David tries to understand and cope with the fact that he survived while everyone else perished. He has many unanswered questions until, one day, after going to church services for one of the victims, he receives an invitation to Elijah Price’s Art Gallery, aptly named “Limited Edition”. Elijah and David finally meet, which begins a quest of discovery for both characters. In an epic scene from that first meeting, we see Elijah explain to David the importance of the comic book form and how comic books are a sort of history for the entire world. Elijah goes on to explain that the reason he wanted to meet David was that if there was someone in the world as weak as he was then there must be someone out there that was his polar opposite.
“I’ve studied the form of comics intimately. I’ve spent a third of my life in a hospital bed… with nothing else to do but read. I believe comics are our last link… to an ancient way of passing on history. The Egyptians drew on walls. Countries all over the world still pass on knowledge through pictorial forms. I believe comics are a form of history… that someone somewhere felt or experienced. Then of course those experiences and that history… got chewed up in the commercial machine, got jazzed up… made titillating, cartooned for the sale rack. This city has seen its share of disasters. I watched the aftermath of that plane crash. I watched the carnage of the hotel fire. I watched the news waiting to hear a very specific combination of words… but they never came. Then one day I saw a news story about a train accident… and I heard them. “There is a sole survivor… and he is miraculously unharmed.” I have something called Osteogenesis Imperfecta. It’s a genetic disorder. I don’t make a particular protein very well and it makes my bones very low in density… very easy to break. I’ve had 54 breaks in my life… and I have the tamest version of this disorder, type one. There are type two, type three, type four. Type fours don’t last very long. So that’s how it popped into my head. If there is someone like me in the world… and I’m at one end of the spectrum… couldn’t there be someone else… the opposite of me at the other end? Someone who doesn’t get sick, who doesn’t get hurt like the rest of us? And he probably doesn’t even know it. The kind of person these stories are about. A person put here to protect the rest of us. To guard us.”
Elijah’s Quest is Proven in David’s Actions
The initial meeting finds David believing that Elijah is delusional, but also thinking about who he is in the process. Elijah doesn’t give up in his pursuit to help David believe in the possibility that he might be a hero, or have abilities, when he shows up at David’s job. Elijah finds out that David has a “sense” for seeing images of potential crimes, when he concedes to Elijah that he pictured a man, in line at the stadium, with a gun in his pocket. Elijah asks David about his choice of profession, as a security guard, which only peaks Elijah’s interest even more.
“You could have been a tax accountant. You could have owned your own gym. You could have opened a chain of restaurants. You could’ve done one of ten thousand things, but in the end, you chose to protect people. *You* made that decision, and I find that very, very interesting. Now all I need is your credit card number.”
Elijah Needs David to Prove His Worth
‘Unbreakable’ is really a movie from the villains point of view, trying to find his purpose in the world, while at the same time helping a hero be born. Elijah is defining his existence and meaning, through his discovery of David and consequently, David’s emergence and realization that he is the hero to Elijah’s villain. This discovery is all done through the lens and foundation of Elijah’s theory that comic books are a form of history in the world, and the belief that if there is someone as weak and fragile as him in the world, then there must also be someone that is as equally opposite. A tentative friendship begins to form between the two, but comes to a complete halt, when David’s son tries to shoot him because he believes what Elijah believes…that David is a hero and is indestructible. In an emotional reaction, David tells Elijah to leave him and his family alone and explains to Elijah that he has been sick before and that he is not indestructible. David tells Elijah that he almost drowned in a swimming pool, and as a result, caught pneumonia and almost died.
M Knight. Shyamalan Has Truly Defined the Comic Book Medium With ‘Unbreakable’
M Knight. Shyamalan, shows us once again, his complete understanding of the comic book form, and its meaning in a following scene with Elijah. Elijah is at a local comic book store, despondent and defeated from David’s reaction, and proceeds to take his frustration out on the one thing he’s relied on is whole life…comic books. And, in a complete twist of fate, out of pure frustration, Elijah gets his answer to David’s hesitancy of becoming the hero Elijah knows he is, in an issue of one of his favorite comic books.
[message on David’s answering machine] “David, it’s Elijah. It was so obvious. It was this one issue that brought it back for me: Century Comics 117. That’s where this group, the Coalition of Evil, tried to ascertain the weakness of every superhero because they all have one, just like you. Your bones don’t break, mine do. That’s clear. Your cells react to bacteria and viruses differently than mine. You don’t get sick, I do. That’s also clear. But for some reason, you and I react the exact same way to water. We swallow it too fast, we choke. We get some in our lungs, we drown. However unreal it may seem, we are connected, you and I. We’re on the same curve, just on opposite ends. The point of all this is now we know something we didn’t. You have a weakness: water. It’s like your kryptonite. You hearing me, David?
“Real life doesn’t fit into little boxes that were drawn for it.”
‘Unbreakable’ tells us the story of a hero in a very grounded way. It tell the tale, through great storytelling, of what being a hero is in a very human way,
Promotional drawing by Alex Ross
Credit – Touchstone Pictures
through David’s very human life experiences. It doesn’t drown us in bombastic overtures of a super powered being like modern super hero movies do, but rather lays the ground work of believability that heroes do exist. Deep down, David knows Elijah is right, but in order to accept his fate, he needs to discover this truth for himself. After Elijah’s message, David goes to a place where they are keeping the remains of the train derailment and sees the car he was in and realizes that no one could have survived that wreckage. David is finally awakened and calls Elijah asking him what to do. With all the knowledge that Elijah has gathered about what a hero is, he tells David to go to where people are and the rest would take care of itself. In a masterful piece of dialogue from M Knight.Shyamalan , he tells David that this part would not be like a comic book, that this is real life and real life doesn’t fit into little boxes. This is Elijah’s confirmation that the two are not mutually exclusive.
“Go to where people are. You won’t have to look very long. It’s all right to be afraid, David… because this part won’t be like a comic book. Real life doesn’t fit into little boxes that were drawn for it.”
David Dunn vs The Orange Man
David’s awakening to this realization of becoming the hero comes to fruition, when he comes into contact with a villain called the Orange Man. David has a vision of the Orange Man holding a family hostage in their own house. In a classic hero vs villain struggle, David Dunne defeats the Orange Man and saves the day. I need to point out that the subtleties in this movie help define and ground this movie in the story’s evolution. For example, if you pay attention to the poncho that David wears throughout the movie, you will see it get longer as he evolves into the hero role…almost as if he’s wearing a cape by the time he defeats the Orange Man.
Hero and Villain Both Realized
The conclusion to ‘Unbreakable’ is an example of some of the greatest storytelling I have ever seen in a movie. The journey of David Dunne from man to hero sets up the inevitable clash with the real villain of the movie. The villain who kept David, his enemy, close, learned everything about him, and showed him who he really was. David Dunne, as the awakened hero, finds his place in the world, finds hope, and is at peace with what he has always been destined to do. David is finally happy and fulfilled. But in a classic twist, the hero’s journey can’t always be a happy one and David’s hope is tested when he meets up with Elijah at ‘Limited Edition’ to celebrate their victory. David’s celebration with Elijah is cut short when Elijah tells David, with ungloved hand out, that it was finally time for them to shake hands. In that moment, David’s hope is put to the test, as he realizes Elijah has been responsible for all of the death and destruction that led up to him discovering David. The unbearable weight, of the deaths of all those innocent people, comes crashing down on David all at once, and he has to cope, rationalize, and try to understand Elijah’s insanity. An insanity that David was an unknowing part of, yet will probably feel responsible for.
“Now that we know who you are, I know who I am”
At the same time that we witness the heroes journey in David, we have witnessed the villains journey in Elijah. A man who lived his entire life searching for the meaning of his tortured life. We see a man have an awakening himself through his journey and ultimate discovery of David. And in that one handshake, Elijah is at peace with who he is and what he has become, just as much as David is at peace with who he has become. Hero and villain, both on opposite ends of the same curve.
You know what the scariest thing is? To not know your place in this world. To not know why you’re here… That’s… That’s just an awful feeling. Now that we know who you are, I know who I am. I’m not a mistake! It all makes sense! In a comic, you know how you can tell who the arch-villain’s going to be? He’s the exact opposite of the hero. And most times they’re friends, like you and me! I should’ve known way back when… You know why, David? Because of the kids. They called me Mr Glass.
An Unbreakable Story
‘Unbreakable’ is an homage to the comic book medium and what it represents. I am still in awe of this movie every time I watch it. It had every ingredient that makes, not just a movie a success, but a classic in every sense of the word. The relationship that develops between David Dunne and his son , for example, is worth the price of admission and a great example of a side story arc that helps define David’s character, as well as complete the story. ‘Unbreakable’ should be mandatory recruitment training for anyone wanting to get into the comic book business. Marvel and DC comics would do well to watch this movie to learn a thing or two on what great storytelling looks like. It would show them how to develop good characters with great back stories that fans can become invested in. ‘Unbreakable’, in my opinion, would do extremely well in todays boring formulaic environment of appeasement and checkmarks. You hearing me, Marvel and DC?
