Unbreakable: Purpose and Identity

Unbreakable is a 2000 supernatural/drama written and directed by the now-infamous M. Night Shyamalan. It was his follow up to the Academy Award Nominated The Sixth Sense, not creating as much buzz as his recent film before.

Throughout the recent years, as superhero films slowly created a deep carving in our culture, Unbreakable has become an even more relevant and distinctive superhero film than what has come after. Part of this reason is the approach to the superhero and comic book genre in general, followed by its near-perfect execution.

        Unbreakable is both a superhero movie, and it's not one. Which why if one was to ask me"Hey, what's your favorite superhero movie?", I'd without hesitation say it's the very film I'm discussing right now.  The reason it works is because it manages to tell a story that is grounded in reality in such a way that the first time I saw this film as a kid, I had no clue where any of this was going.
To quote Roger Ebert, "The true subject of the film is well guarded, although always in plain view". Shamyalan keeps the audience misdirected the entire time, and leads to satisfying payoffs that prompt multiple watches to see purposeful details that might not seem important the first time around.

      I re-watched the film at a very difficult time in my life. This involved countless mistakes that I had to pay for, such as totaling my car from sleeping on the wheel, and struggling to get to work. This was an extensive ordeal. At the same time, I was trying as hard as I can to connect and relate to other people. I've always felt like an outcast and I've always felt alone. Nothing felt right and nothing felt like it made sense. This compelled me to watch Unbreakable on several occasions because I felt back then, like I was meant for something more but I refused to answer that call. Instead I tried to constantly shift aspects of my life in a way that felt good for me, but wasn't for me.

This is what made me feel like David Dunn (played by Bruce Willis), the first protagonist. A man who refuses to grasp what his true identity is. After he survives a train disaster, being the only one to survive, without breaking a bone of any kind, he attempts to pretend as if what happened wasn't remotely defining. He readies to pack and go to New York for another security job, leaving his son, Joseph Dunn, and his wife, Audrey Dunn.

It's not until he meets Elijah Price (played by Samuel L. Jackson in my favorite role of his), another man who has a defining moment at birth, where the first thing that happens when born is that his arms and legs are broken. This reveals he has osteogenesis imperfecta, a rare genetic disorder that causes him to have a very brittle bone structure, meaning at any time, he can break any of his bones without effort. He learns of David Dunn's defining moment and encounters him, telling that there's a reason why he can be easily broken, and David is the complete opposite. He believes that comic books are exaggerations of these real-life possibilities.

Throughout the course of the film we learn that both men are both similar and different, same as the film's genre explorations. It's realism interconnects with familiar superhero and comic book tropes, but doesn't fully manifest until the surprise ending. Both characters become very integral to each other's personal stories.

Both David and Elijah are men struggling to find their place in the world. The only difference is Elijah is driven to find himself through his obsession with comic books, his life growing up around them to find comfort in incredibly difficult parts of his life. David is not driven, but instead resistant to any possible truths about who or what he is. He blocks out his past events such as when he drowned as a child, and when he saved Audrey from his car accident in his college years.  David doesn't want to feel different and wants to change his life in anyway possible to keep it the same. Elijah is an eccentric through, and doesn't believe that David's normality is real. Elijah embraces his differences and attempts to pull what's different out of David.

        Throughout the film both characters go through their own journeys, such as Elijah confirming David's intuition of a man carrying a gun at the college stadium he works at, and David learning he can lift over 400 lbs when bench-pressing followed by his fear of water, and lastly he hasn't taken a single sick day in his life, never remembering ever being sick. Once David attempts to reconnect with his family, he begins to reconnect with himself and near the third act of the film, he contacts Elijah through the phone and tells him of his past events that actually did happen.   

David realizes that these powers are for a reason and espouses his possible calling to take action. It's no coincidence that he chooses a job as a security officer, which causes his rain poncho to be his costume. He becomes a superhero through his calling, with his son, Joseph being his only confidant to keep his powers a secret.
Then we have Elijah, who has come in tune with his purpose, revealing that David's defining moment was caused by Elijah, at the expense of killing more than thousands from three huge disasters to find someone who is his opposite. Elijah considers himself to be David's arch-nemesis, Mr. Glass.

Both characters' journeys are both realistic, while still staying close to comic book elements, mainly of the superhero genre. They both look for their purpose and their character arcs lead them to in a sense, a satisfying revelation for both as they both discover their purpose and identity in a world that is as real as our own, even if Elijah might've manipulated the world into a comic book. But Shamyalan manages to keep things both subversive and subtle, keeping story and characters first before other elements.

In conclusion I've found this film to be perfectly inspiring for me. I struggle to connect with many things and people, and through a series of ordeals in my life it could draw leads to possibilities of a greater purpose. Unbreakable is a film that tells us to not hide from who we are and what are purpose is, no matter how scary or risky it could be. In a world that seems like there is no purpose, we as individuals have one.

Did you enjoy the film? Leave a comment below on what you thought of it!