Things are never simple in an M. Night Shyamalan movie, are they? You go to a cabin in the woods and the apocalypse is nigh (Knock At The Cabin). You go to the beach and it’s the beach that makes you old (Old). You go to a concert with your dad and the concert isn’t real and your dad is a killer (Trap). And so it follows that Shyamalan’s new Nicholas Sparks co-conceived supernatural romance Remain sees Jake Gyllenhaal’s architect Tate Gordon move to a small coastal town, fall for Phoebe Dynevor’s alluring Wren, and soon find out neither are quite as they seem. Just what exactly is going on is anyone’s guess — check out the trailer below and see what you reckon’s afoot;
Okay, so what’s the deal with Tate and Wren then, eh? Because if we were a little suspicious of the hunky dory honeymoon phasing in this Remain trailer to begin with, then by the time Tate’s told Wren “You’re not like anyone I’ve ever met” and she’s asked him why they can’t be together, our Shyamalan senses are well and truly tingling. Throw in an ominous aspect ratio shift, some sketchy shenanigans with Wren seemingly disappearing in the bathroom, and some Bernard Herrmann style stabbing strings, and no amount of charismatic Jakey G moves or Mitski needle drops could convince us that this thing hasn’t got more twists than a super twisty pretzel. At the very least, we’re like a solid 70-75% convinced yer gal Wren either doesn’t exist, or is a ghost, or is some kind of trauma hallucination on Tate’s part…
The official synopsis for Remain, which elsewhere co-stars Ashley Walters, Julie Hagerty, and Jay O. Sanders, reads: “When reclusive architect Tate Gordon moves to small coastal town to complete his latest project, he encounters an alluring young woman who pulls him out of his shell, and into the center of a deadly mystery that hangs over the town.
While we are as in the dark as ever when it comes to parsing what M. Night Shyamalan has up his sleeve here, the prospect of a cross-media team-up between the writer of The Notebook and the director of The Sixth Sense, starring Jake actual Gyllenhaal and Phoebe actual Dynevor as its romantic leads, is enough to have us sold on whatever the maverick filmmaker has been cooking. We’ll find out whether Remain lives up to its name and has us glued to our seats when Shyamalan’s latest takes us into the unknown — and into cinemas — on 5 February, 2027.
