This film has gotten a lot of criticism, but it is one of my favorite shamalyan films. I think people expect a big trick somewhere in the movie and because this movie doesn’t deliver that like some of his earlier films people just decide it’s not worth their time.
But the message here is very intriguing. Parents try to keep their children safe and often rationalize that whatever they have do to that end will justify the means.
There is also a message about trust. Sometimes the people we trust mislead us and we come to “validate” what we’ve been told because “we’ve gone out in to the woods and experienced the same thing.” However, we’ve gone out with “eyes” that were trained by the people we trusted.