Signs - Everything happens for a reason.
First, Signs is an awesome movie. Second, I’m convinced this movie is totally underrated and is actually better than Sixth Sense, this being M. Night Shyamalan follow up to that film. Signs isn’t perfect, but it’s still a pretty sweet movie. OK, now that that is out of the way we can proceed.
Signs was released in 2002 and stars Mel Gibson as Graham Hess, a former Episcopal Priest (who is actually not gay) who lost his faith after the death of his wife. Hess lives on a rural farm in Doylestown Pennsylvania, before Pennsylvanians lost their ever-loving minds and voted for John Fetterwoman.
The movie doesn’t waste any time and gets right into it – which is awesome, also, I think the pacing of this film is great. Graham has two children, a boy named Morgan probably around ten, and a girl named Bo who is probably around five, both the kid actors do a great job, and the little girl in this movie is adorable…Also, Graham’s brother Merrill, moved in with them to help out after the death of Graham’s wife.
Graham wakes to the scream of his daughter. Both Graham and Merrill rush out of the house to see what’s going on. As they find Bo and Morgan in cornfield behind their home Graham sees a massive crop circle that he attributes to some of his neighbors screwing around. But then, they see on TV that crops circles begin popping up all over the world.
A couple days later Graham wakes up to Bo staring at him – something every parent has
experienced, which is always a little creepy when it happens. She says, “there is a monster
outside my window can I have a glass of water.” We learn through the film, that Bo has a thing with water…it’s either contaminated or has dust in it or whatever. Leaving half full glasses of water all over the house. As Graham puts his daughter back into bed, he sees a large figure staring at him on top of their barn.
He wakes his brother thinking the neighbors are screwing around again, so both men are going to run outside yelling and cursing in order to scare them. Both men run out the front door in different directions hoping to catch the men as they reach the back of the house. However, as they draw close, hearing the person and seeing their shadow, what they believed to be the neighbor jumps on the roof. Couple things I love about this movie is that you barely see the aliens at all – which is cool because they’re not really the heart the story. The other thing I love is the way Shyamalan builds suspense. This scene is a good example of both.
After Graham and Merrill hear, whoever they were chasing on the roof, they then hear whatever is on the roof jump into the cornfield, some fifty feet away. After Graham contacts the sheriff to let her know what happened, but they could really tell her much, she concludes that they can’t really be sure what happened, or who it was, but encourages him to take the kids into town to get them out of the house.
He does and Morgan goes to the local bookstore and buys a book on UFO’s and aliens. Later, as Graham is looking at the book with Morgan and Bo, he sees a picture that looks just like their house with a dad laying in the yard with two children and a UFO shooting rays at the house starting is on fire. Just then, the phone rings and Graham answers. It is the guy who fell asleep at the wheel killing his wife while she was out on walk. Graham goes over to the guy’s house and knocks but then notices the furniture knocked over inside as he peers through the window.
Graham walks around the house and sees the guy just sitting in his guy, Graham walks over to see what’s going on. The guy tells him he has been planning to call him for six months after the accident and just didn’t, but when it happened, his was the first number he called. Graham asks him what happened?
The guy then tells him how sorry is what happened and on improbable it was that he hit
Graham’s wife that night. He just happened to fall at the exact time he passed Graham’s wife while she was out on a walk. He then tells Graham that he was going near water because he thinks they don’t like water, and if he goes inside, not to go into the pantry because he caught one of them, and then drives off.
Graham has to see what’s locked in this guy’s pantry. He goes inside and places a butcher knife under the door to see if he can see whatever is in here’s reflection. As he is looking, an alien hand reaches out from under the door and claws at him. Startled, he then cuts two of the aliens figures off with the butcher knife still in hand. He then goes home and tells his family what happened and asks them if they want to go near water, believing the guy’s theory or stay in their home.
They all decide to stay in their home, but fearing some sort of invasion they board up all the windows and upstairs doors. And then all pick what they want for dinner like it’s their last super. Graham tells everyone to start eating, but Morgan protests that they should pray first. Graham refuses and begins yelling at the kids. They all begins crying and the children walk over and hug their dad.
Just then they hear a big thud against the house, and they begin to hear movement on the roof and the porch and all around the house. They run to the cellar for safety and are able to barricade the door, but then they remember that the house had an old coal shoot. As Merrill and Graham look for the coal shoot they find it at the same time, Morgan standing with his back to an old iron grate. An alien hand reaches out for Morgan, and you hear both men yell as they drop their flashlights.
As Merrill finds his flashlight we see Graham holding his son on his lap, with Morgan having a bad asthma attack. Graham is telling him he can make and that they will get through it, as he tries to comfort his son. You can tell Graham is wrestling with God and is scared. He told his brother earlier in the film, essentially that nothing really happens for a reasons, and that everything is just chance. As proof for this, he tells Merrill what his wife lasts words were before she died. She told Graham to tell Merrill to swing away, and then concludes that these were just neurons firing in the brain causing her to remember one of Merrill baseball games, Merrill used to be a famous minor league baseball player.
But as Graham holds his boy, you can tell he doesn’t believe that, and is very angry about it. He wants to believe it, but he knows God is real and in control of all things and he is angry at Him, even saying out loud as he holds his son, “I hate you”. Graham is angry at God because of the loss of his wife which seemed completely random, and now he is scared to lose his son.
He gets his sons to claim down and fall asleep. Merrill suggests they turn off their flashlights to conserve them. As they sleep we see a flashback form the wife died. She was pinned to a tree by the truck and all the paramedics concluded they had no idea how she could be alive. Graham got their just in time for him to speak to his wife.
Graham then wakes up to the radio, which is now working. Merrill tells Graham that they are saying, the aliens admitted some kind of poison gas and killed a bunch of people but that we figured out how to beat them and they ran off. They then determine to go upstairs, because Morgan can’t suffer another attack without his medicine, and they now think the risk is worth it.
Graham carries Morgan upstairs and places him on the couch and then goes to get the TV for him to watch. As he comes back in the room there is an alien holding Morgan. Merrill then runs into the room, with both Graham and Merrill staring at the alien holding Morgan. It’s then Graham remembers his wife’s dying words, and seeing one of Merrill record setting bats hanging on the wall tells Merrill to swing away. The alien then emits a gas out his wrist in Morgan face before Merrill hit him with a bat knocking the alien over knocking one of the glasses of water over onto the alien. As the water pours out you see burning the alien.
Graham grabs Morgan and runs him outside, while Merrill begins hitting all the water glasses that are all over the living room from Bo at the alien finally killing it. Graham gets outside with Morgan and gives him his medicine. We Graham saying over and over again, that it didn’t hurt him because his lungs were closed, from his asthma. Morgan indeed survives, his asthma saving him. The next we scene we see in months later with Graham dressed in his traditional priestly garb with the black coat and white collar. The end.
Man Test
Does this movie pass the man test? Absolutely. It is suspenseful from beginning to end. There is a great enemy to overcome, but like any great movie the real monsters that we need to overcome are the ones in our own hearts.
Christian Worldview
What about Christian worldview? This one is easy because the theme of providence and
Grahams, wrestlings with that, are really the heart of the film. Providence is God’s control over and directing of His creation towards His intends ends. From the least to the greatest, from the smallest to the greatest of details God is sovereign over every aspect of His creation.
God’s sovereignty is a doctrine with teeth – that brings the sweetest comforts but also the greatest pain, as was the case with Graham. Graham knows there is nothing outside of God’s control and yet he is angry at the loss of his wife. It seems so meaningless, and yet by the end of the film he is able to see that even in something so painful that can make no sense at the time, has a purpose in God’s plan that is redemptive and glorious in some way.
One of the coolest things about this film, isn’t the aliens. The aliens are just a prop to basically deal with the unexpected things of life – could there be a purpose in these unwanted intrusions, these things that threaten our very existence? As Martin Luther said,
“And though this world, with devils filled, should threaten to undo us, We will not fear, for God hath willed His truth to triumph through us;”
Life is put together with two-by-fours…it is more an interwoven tapestry, with each thread
playing its part into the next. What is wonderful about this film is that it illustrates the
magnificence in the small and seemingly insignificant details of life. Obviously the death of Grahams wife is a major event that gave shape to his life, as well as the aliens…but it was how all of the small details came together by the end of the film. Bo distaste of water. The words of wife before she died. Morgan’s asthma attack at just the right time. Merrill desire to swing at every ball that came at him.
It all mattered, because all of life matters. Does it all make sense? Nope, not yet anyway. The secret things belong to the Lord our God the things He has revealed are for us and for our children forever. His ways are definitely higher than ours and His thoughts are definitely higher than ours. As the old song says, “Further along we’ll know all about it, further along we’ll understand way.”
Like I said earlier, this movie is not perfect, but I love it anyway. I give it an A.
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