Film Review - Knowing

Fans of Knowing already compare it to Steven Speilberg's Close Encounters, and while parallels can be drawn there is only a shallow similarity.


Nicolas Cage plays John Koestler MIT professor and father of Caleb (Chandler Canterbury). The family is dealing with the death of Caleb's mother, a loss that drove John to doubt any form of supernatural order exists in the world. When Caleb's school digs up a time capsule buried in the late fifties each student receives an envelope. Caleb brings home a sheet of numbers, in which his father discovers a pattern with dates and death tolls of disasters spanning back to the burial of the capsule, and also predicting three disasters still to come.


Director Alex Proyas has aimed high with this slightly confused thriller/suspense/disaster sci-fi movie. Proyas' earlier works include I Robot, goth favourite The Crow and cult classics such Dark City. The film draws together elements from Close Encounters, Signs, and an episode of the Outer Limits called Inconstant Moon. The protagonist struggles with his lost faith whilst questing after a secret that leads to the final act, where we find the world itself is in peril and just maybe the numbers hold the key to mankind's salvation.


In truth the film does not stand out for its script, acting or effects, the music score is uninspiring and the overall emotional content is constantly dark and depressing with very few moments of joy. A feeling of suspense and an edge-of-the-seat thrill are present throughout the movie, with both more evident as the film's villains “The Whispering People” make more appearances.


The effects used for the three disasters don't wrap the audience in cotton wool, leaving you to feel the human cost and emotional impact. Nicolas Cage's finest moment as John comes after he witnesses a plane crash. The shell shock on his face displays his emotional turmoil and the conflict of his rationality fighting with the surety that he has a prediction of yet more disasters to come.


In Knowing, Proyas presents the story of one man's (Koestler's) struggle to reassess his understanding of the world. He comes to accept, through exposure to the remaining disasters and further research into the numbers, that there is a grand plan at work for the betterment of mankind. There are many clues that it is a Judeo-Christian plan, but the film delivers twists that show a different interpretation can be made. By the end of the film we are left with no doubt that the story we have seen, played out within a western society, has also been echoed around the globe, and it would be presumptuous to assume the other recipients of the prophecies were from solely Christian backgrounds.


Within the story there are many biblical themes. There is a question of whether a father can find it in himself to give up his only son to save mankind? You start to wonder how reassuring is it to have a higher being watch over us. And the central question seems to be - Is it better to know what is coming or to remain blissfully ignorant? We see the breakdown of society's morals, we see a representation of heaven and hell, and in the final moments of the movie we find a pointer to the tree of knowledge, bringing another insight into the title of the movie. There's plenty to take home and talk about from this film.


Knowing is thought provoking and accessible, it struggles with a few issues and resorts to a Deus-ex-machina ending, even still this is a worthy suspense movie. 7/10