9 Reasons The Visit Is M Night Shyamalan's Comeback

2. It's A Film About Filmmaking

The found footage genre feels so over-saturated these days, but Shyamalan again demonstrates unexpected self-awareness here by making much of the movie concerned with the act of filmmaking itself. Rebecca is an amateur filmmaker creating a documentary about her mother and grandparents, and so while her and Tyler still lug the camera around beyond any point that could be considered reasonable, the gimmick nevertheless feels more organic to the scenario than in many similar movies. Plus, there are a ton of amusing lines from Rebecca regarding the filmmaking process: she's constantly talking to her brother about how to best stage a scene (mise en scene, of course), and above all else, it makes Shyamalan seem more perceptive as a filmmaker. In lesser hands Rebecca would seem overly obnoxious and precocious, but if there's any character in the movie that essentially feels like a version of the filmmaker himself, it's her. In examining the process of filmmaking itself, Shyamalan has turned inward and, on the basis of this film's quality, taken a long, hard look at his recent output.