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I prepared myself to watch Knowing with an open mind because I hadn’t come across any information about it, but both the synopsis and trailer were interesting. I get that Nicolas Cage hasn’t been performing well lately, but I personally think he’s a great actor, despite his strange hair and over-the-top persona. Call me crazy.
Knowing begins in 1959 and takes place on an elementary school playground. All the children are playing and laughing, except one girl, who is very still. Her name is Lucinda Embry (Lara Robinson) and, unsurprisingly, she’s labeled as the ‘weird kid’ in class. She looked like a younger version of Christina Ricci in her 1991 role as Wednesday Addams.
Regardless, the students had to come up with a way to immortalize something related to the school, and she is the one who suggested a ‘time capsule’ which won the competition. When the teacher asked them to imagine what the future would look 50 years into the future and then draw it, Lucinda instead took a sheet of paper and densely packed, apparently random numbers on two sides of a sheet of paper. The teacher went around collecting the papers and felt bad for little Lucinda who seemed out of it and the teacher took the paper from her, (to me) what seemed to be, before she was done.
Skip to today, and we have an MIT professor and astrophysicist John Koestler (Nicolas Cage), who lives in a spacious house that is surrounded by a forest with his son Caleb (Chandler Canterbury). John recently lost his wife, and he and Caleb have been learning to live without her. John and Caleb are still finding it tough to move on. John is an emotional wreck and is trying to drown his sorrows with whiskey, all while trying to work as a scientist, teach students, and take care of his son.
Sure enough, we have now reached the 50th anniversary of the sealed time capsule, which means Caleb possesses the list of numbers left behind by Lucinda. While it is true that Koestler has been consuming alcohol, one evening, out of sheer curiosity he decides to search for the digits, and remarkably manages to come across the date of the terrorist attacks which was September 11, 2001. To his surprise, it seems that the number of casualties seems to be mentioned on the paper as well.
He starts hunting through the sheet for other noteworthy dates and actually uncovers a wealth of them such as earthquakes, airplane crashes, and fires. This causes him panic for reasons that won’t require much explaining, and deep down, the fact that he has slowly adopted a view that everything following the death of his wife is pure coincidence makes this all the more shocking. Simply put, this is factually the opposite.
In actual fact, there are 81 deaths scheduled within the next day and right here is where the captivating premise and the beginning of the movie starts to go off the rails. Seeking a disaster that offset with this condition, he virtually spends the whole next day on scream, but then finds himself asleep. Reluctantly, he must head out to retrieve his son at school. Then, what do you think happens? When he is in a traffic congested area, a small plane dramatically crashes in close proximity to where he is standing.
Don’t get me wrong but it was actually one of the most serious and most intense scenes in the movie (I don’t know when showing people being set on fire while they stroll out of a blazing plane wreck became PG – 13 material). However, the fact that he strained credulity in his mind is totally remarkable.
He decides to figure out the mystery by reaching out to Lucinda’s daughter, Diana Wayland (Rose Byrne). Naturally, she thinks he is a complete lunatic, but she eventually comes around. She possesses a child, and both her and Caleb begin to hear “whispers” in their heads, the same that Lucinda heard. There are also these mysterious pale goth children with long blonde hair and black coats who seem to appear out of nowhere, who definitely have something to do with the paper and what is currently transpiring.
So, John now attempts to avert the events that he found written on the paper. The last day for him and his son is only a few days away. This means that the event that is meant to transpire during the last day may be the end of the world.
Well, this kind of flips things upside down in terms of what the “secret” really is stored and the what and how it is revealed – that can cause the movie to either succeed or fail. The start of the film is quite appealing, psychological, and STRONGLY disturbing. However, once you start watching it, you slowly realize that the things that are appearing are one of three options: Angels, demons or aliens. There are some biblical references tossed around (and Cage’s character happens to not have a good relationship with his father, who is also a Pastor) and when in fact, it comes to the delightful (and I don’t mean that in a good way) ending, I suppose depending on your point of view it’s one of those love-it-or-hate-it scenarios (assuming, of course, that I don’t spoil anything for anyone who intends to watch the film).
It is strange but I feel that if you’re a sci-fi fan you will appreciate the ending, if you happen to be more of a New Age type then you’ll take away something else entirely from the ending and if you’re a Christian it might very well frustrate the stuffing out of you (it did me).
So, at the end of it all, would you recommend watching Knowing? This one is tricky. How much are you willing to suspend your disbelief? The premise is pretty good, but to be fair, it has some pretty significant plot holes from my perspective. If you try not to overthink it, you may enjoy it or perhaps find it entertaining in spite of it being overly serious.
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