Film review: Knowing (2009) « The sound of my own voice

Film review: Knowing (2009)

29Jun09

In 1959 a group of schoolchildren send messages in a time capsule in the form of drawings depicting how they imagine the world will look like in 50 years. Except for one disturbed little girl, Lucinda Embry (Lara Robinson), that writes down a code. When the capsule is opened 50 years later Caleb Koestler (Chandler Canterbury), son of MIT professor John Koestler (Nicholas Cage), receives the code, which his father deciphers to find a dark and prophetic message to him personally. He know abandons his scientific world view to confront a different form of reality as the events foretold by Lucinda come true.

I liked most things about this movie: the acting, the cinematography, the story. It does tap into the supernatural experience in a suggestive way that I think a lot of viewers will appreciate. It’s not just a lot of New Age elements cobbled together; it’s done in a way that rings true. The special effects were okay, but nothing more than that – which is a good thing in a film that works more on psychological than visual level.

What I didn’t like was the blending of genres. It starts out very much like a supernatural thriller in the vein of Dean Koontz (more of that please!), but changes towards the end into something more like a religious drama. That was a bit disappointing because the build up of the thriller then ends in something completely unexpected but also somewhat anticlimactic.

But the end – which I won’t give away here of course – was not so bad as to ruin the film, far from it. So all in all, I’d recommend this one.