Shyamalan’s Unbreakable – A meditation on vocation and roles

by Thomas Hardy

We find ourselves in the last stages of the homogenization of the sexes.  Not only are men and women interchangeable, but they can now transform into one another.  Men can be warriors; women can be warriors. Indeed, Alien, with its competent female Ripley among macho fools, dates to 1979.  The woman warrior is now almost a cliché.  Women take care of children; men take care of children.   Men work and women work.  Women get pregnant……

But wait, perhaps all is not right in Androgenousland.  In Unbreakable, we are introduced to David Dunn, a train passenger on his way back from NYC to Philly.  Played by Bruce Willis, we immediately sense he is depressed in some way. This is heightened by the choice of Willis, who must purposely suppress his naturally oversized personality to play this role.  We see him attracted to a beautiful young woman who gets on the train and sits next to him.  A little girl sitting in front of them peers through the space between the seats and sees David take off his wedding ring clandestinely and watches him make a pitiful play for the woman.  Shyamalan, in this scene and in several others, reminds us that children are watching us.

The train seems to be going unnaturally fast, and then we suddenly find ourselves in an ER room where we learn that the train was in a terrible wreck and that he, David, is the only survivor and does not have a scratch on him.  Luck perhaps?  He is picked up by his wife, played by Robin Wright, and his son, who looks to be of middle school age.  It is clear that there is little romantic going on between the couple as he drops the hand she offers him.  The couple seems quite emotionally flat.

Next, David is confronted by Elijah Price, played by Samuel Jackson, concerning his survival.  Elijah runs a high-end comic book art gallery.  We see a flashback where Elijah is born and learns he has a genetic defect, which leaves him with very brittle and breakable bones.  When he is a boy, and quite withdrawn, his single mother purchases some comic books for him to stimulate his interest in reading.  This and his limited mobility due to his defect eventually led him to believe that comic books represent reality in some way.  He believes there are people with extraordinary abilities who live among us.  He presents his theories to David and his son, who is present, and wonders out loud if David’s survival in the train wreck might indicate he is one of these people.

As the story unfolds, David, who initially rejects Elijah’s premise, learns that he has never been sick and that his strength is greater than normal.  His son is desperate to believe his father is as Elijah has described.  Here we see the natural and true desire of a child to believe his father is a hero.  Talking with Elijah again, David is told that perhaps the reason he feels depressed is that he is not “doing what he is supposed to be doing”.  He is not living his vocation.

The idea of a vocation today is only accepted in completely secular terms, meaning a job of some sort. If one is really “called” there would have to be a “caller”.  We do, however, mostly accept that each person has unique talents based on a combination of nurture and inborn qualities that offer the possibility of amazing accomplishments.  It is clear David is not living his two vocations, that of a father and that of an extra-human protector, and that these vocations are intertwined.  After an incident where Elijah falls down a flight of stairs and shatters several bones, he is introduced to David’s wife, who coincidentally or providentially becomes his physical therapist.  She tells Elijah that David was a star football player but that his abilities, while admirable, were directed in a way opposite to what she does. She heals. Elijah, in his prophetic role, reiterates his belief about David to his  wife, saying, “We are living in mediocre times.  Many do not believe that there is greatness within them.” This is true of David, of course, but he is saying something meant to be universal, something to us.

While David is in high school, after a car accident revealed in a flashback in which David’s car is turned over and burning, he superhumanly forces the door open in order to retrieve and save his future wife.  The first bystander on the scene of the accident asks David if he is alright. Clearly, he is, but he does not answer the man. After the accident, David no longer plays football, claiming to be injured, which he is not. Elijah suggests to David that he has foregone his vocation as an extra-human protector so that he can be with his wife, who rejects violence. 

Here, we see Shyamalan suggesting that perhaps the roles of the two parents are not interchangeable and are born of the natural differences of the sexes. David’s wife is mother to her son, a peacemaker in the family and a healer.  David is supporting the family but his role of father/protector is downgraded by his wife’s insistence on non-violence.  At one point, the son begs his father to join him in a neighborhood football game. David refuses. On the train, David jokes with the attractive young woman that he is interested in doing synchronized swimming, which is a woman’s sport.  His job is working as a security guard at a football stadium.  That is, he is a glorified hall monitor.  No wonder he is unhappy. 

David learns he has another superhuman ability; when he is touched by a stranger, he can see the evil the person has done.  When he finally accepts the fact that he is meant to be a quasi-superhero, Elijah sends him to a train station to be touched by those walking past him so that he can find someone who needs to be “saved.”  We see him touched and experience a woman thief and a male rapist. Then, he is touched by a very large maintenance man who has taken over a nearby home, killing the father and terrorizing the mother and two daughters.  David follows the man when he leaves work back to the same home.  David, wearing a long, hooded poncho reminiscent of a superhero’s cape, violently confronts this large, Goliath-like man, and we see the fight from above. There are no fake punches using camera angles. The violence is as real as possible. The perpetrator tries to throw the smaller David off his back as David tries to strangle him. David is pushed into walls and furniture is smashed. Finally, David snaps the man’s neck.

David comes home to his wife who is asleep.  They have been staying in separate rooms with David sleeping upstairs. Now, David picks her up and carries her to his room as his wife silently watches him.  He places her in his bed and lies down next to her. Earlier, on a date, David’s wife asks him at what point he first thought they might not make it as a married couple. He tells her that it happened when he had a bad dream and did not wake her up to tell her about it.  Here we see the historic breakdown of the marriage when the vulnerability necessary for intimacy was withdrawn by the husband.  This is most likely due to the depression David suffers due to his unfulfilled destiny.  He now tells her he has had a bad dream. She comforts him by saying that “it’s ok now”.  This is how a wife protects her husband in an almost motherlike fashion.

The next morning is the second climax of the movie.  The son comes down to the kitchen and notices, wide-eyed, that the parents are laughing and tender with each other. There has been a tectonic shift in their relationship.  As the boy pours himself orange juice, the father slides a newspaper article about an unknown hero who has saved a family.  There is a drawing of a man in a poncho next to the text.  David silently indicates to the boy that he was right about his father, he is capable of heroism. Tears well up in the son.  David puts his finger to his lips to indicate silence about the article and points to the mother. She must not know what has happened.

David’s dysfunctional family is healed when he regains his vocation, that of protector. The role includes the possibility of violence to protect his own and others who are threatened.  It is a masculine role.  The rejection of violence by the mother is the suppression of his vocation and his unique talents.

The last scene of the movie is when David reunites with Elijah.  We know by this point that Elijah sees the world through a comic book mythology.  He sees himself as David’s evil counterpart in a comic book world.  David realizes the truth about Elijah when he shakes his hand and sees the evil things Elijah has done to find David and confirm his alternate comic book reality.  He has been an arsonist of a hotel, blown up a plane, and caused the train wreck in order to find David.  He is unconcerned with the victims.  He claims that so many sacrifices were made so that David could be identified, but the sacrifices were not his but the victims.  The victims are no more real to him than comic book characters.  He explains his relationship to David in solely comic book terms. 

Without suggesting any sort of perfect parallel, one can see this descent into unreality in the mass violence perpetrated by teens from dysfunctional families who engage in violent video games where kills are rewarded and who, like Elijah, are rejected and isolated.  Like Elijah, real physical interaction has been limited, and the mind creates the unreal that normal social interaction would inhibit.  Real violence is not comic book violence.

Shyamalan has created in Unbreakable a highly structured story about the roles we take on as parents and as men and women.  It asks the vocational question.  Are we meant to do one thing or another?  Are children watching us, learning to discern what is meaningful from what has a limited connection to the real?  Is it part of a man’s and a father’s vocation to be violent in the protection of the family or the weak?

This film is very similar to his later film Signs, where the main figure rediscovers his mission after a loss of faith. This is a recurrent theme in his movies – where random violence causes a rupture in a parent’s mission, only to be recovered after a quasi-supernatural event. When the mission is recovered, the family is restored.  Since this theme is repeated so often in Shyamalan’s films,  I believe he is trying to say something to modern parents about the importance of marriage, children, and parental mission.

Shyamalan’s personal history is instructive in understanding his movies. He was born in India of Hindu parents who were both doctors. Emigrating to the Philadelphia area when he was just six weeks old, his parents sent him to a Catholic grade school and Episcopal high school.  We observe that Shyamalan’s movie universes are pantheistic, and yet the clear understanding of vocation is very Christian.  Shyamalan is noted for making horror movies which, while having a few “jump scenes,” are much deeper than any horror flick.  His universes conspire to create an external crisis that resolves the interior crisis of his protagonists. 

Few professional movie reviewers seem to understand his films.  Most reviews of Unbreakable focus on the storyline of a quasi-superhero discovering his powers. They miss the real message of the film which is deeper and more meaningful.  This Shyamalan film and others are worthy of multiple viewings to understand what his message really is.