Retrospective Film Review

Unbreakable (2000) • 20 Years Later

A man learns something extraordinary about himself after a devastating accident.

Dating back to when it seemed like M. Night Shyamalan might become one of the greatest writer-directors of his generation, before his output became erratic and sometimes repetitive, Unbreakable is an intriguing complement to his breakthrough hit The Sixth Sense (1999).

Much like that paranormal chiller, Unbreakable features a downbeat Bruce Willis as a man who’s failed to comprehend the truth of his existence. It also again pairs him with a boy who does grasp what’s going on. And it devastates the audience’s assumptions at the end, in a twist the entire film’s been quietly hinting towards, while more overtly pointing at a different understanding of the situation.

But Unbreakable differs from The Sixth Sense as much as it resembles it. Most obviously, Unbreakable has a second strong adult lead in the shape of Samuel L. Jackson, whose character’s just as important to this tale while being more charismatic. (Indeed, it’s Jackson’s role — not young Spencer Treat Clark —…