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Released in the same year as the more popular disaster spectacle “2012,” “Knowing” is a strange amalgamation of science and non-science, placing MIT amidst the religious allegory. It is a story of predictions. It also tries to circulate the question of whether life is a string of random accidents and mistakes.
Knowing (2009) Plot Summary & Movie Synopsis:
What Secrets Does a 50-Year-Old Time Capsule Hold for a Curious Boy?
In 1959, William Dawes Elementary School of Lexington, Massachusetts, ran a unique competition to celebrate its opening day. For the dedication ceremony, organizers buried a time capsule. The children were then invited to create drawings depicting their visions of the future, which would be placed inside the capsule and unearthed fifty years later. All the children created drawings except for Lucinda Embry. Lucinda’s work seems to be a series of numbers that follow no coherent pattern.
Before Lucinda can jot down the final set of numbers, the allowed time expires, and the teacher takes away her work. The next day, Lucinda is found engraving the numbers that she failed to write on the school’s closet door with her fingernails. Fifty years later, the time capsule is unearthed, and the current batch of William Dawes Elementary School gets the drawings that have been preserved in the capsule. Lucinda’s numerical codes find their way to Caleb Koestler, the 9-year-old son of widowed MIT astrophysics professor John Koestler.
What does John find out about the numbers?
The numerical work does not make any sense to John at first. However, after a fair share of brainstorming, John unearths its eerie indications that the numbers might be predictions of the dates, number of casualties, and geographical coordinates of colossal disasters that have magnanimously done more damage than simply rocking the boat over the last 50 years. There are predictions of the 9/11 attacks, the Pan Am Flight crash of 1988, and the Oklahoma City bombing. There are also predictions that indicate the disasters are yet to happen.
Soon, John is caught in the middle of a plane crash. Then, the subway train John is in is derailed. Both these incidents cause major havoc. However, the disasters are not yet over as he is about to be privy to the occurrence of one last disaster. Meanwhile, some men dressed in black appear and communicate with Caleb. One night, Caleb gets a vision of an enormous forest fire that seems to be engulfing the whole planet.
What happens when John goes out searching for Lucinda?
John locates Lucinda’s daughter, Diana, who lives with her daughter, Abby, and follows them to a museum. When John reveals his real reason for following them, it evinces a hostile reaction from Diana. Later, Diana comes back and reveals that her mother predicted the date on which Diana would die. John tells her that the incident that killed his wife is also written down in the numbers, and she regrets not finding the note before his wife’s death.
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They reach Lucinda’s abandoned mobile home. Diana shows John that the tail of the number series ends with ‘EE,’ but they cannot figure out what that might mean. The walls of Lucinda’s mobile home are all plastered with newspaper clippings of the major disasters. Among them, John finds a picture of Matthäus Merian’s engraving of Ezekiel’s “chariot vision”.
Before leaving, John stumbles upon a polished black pebble which he identifies to be resembling the pebble that Caleb had shown after his encounter with the mystery men. Outside Lucinda’s house, the mystery men try to abduct Caleb and Abby. John figures out EE is not the initial of a name but stands for ‘Everyone Else’. John understands that Lucinda saw the end of the world, and EE is the indication that the rest of the population that survived the earlier minor disaster would now die.
What is Ezekiel’s chariot vision?
The Book of Ezekiel contains prophecies of the prophet Ezekiel, one of which is his vision of God. When Ezekiel was exiled by the king, he saw a gleaming cloud wafting toward him from the north. As the cloud came nearer, Ezekiel was able to discern four winged creatures. Ezekiel described the animal as having four different faces following the four directions of the compass—a human face in front, a lion face to the right, an ox to the left, and an eagle in the back.
The wheels of the chariot gleamed like beryl and were perpendicularly cutting through each other. Above the creature, Ezekiel spotted God in human form, seated on a throne that had the glowing appearance of sapphire. In the Jewish tradition, there are myths regarding the dangers of this vision, hence its restrictive discussion.
Knowing (2009) Movie Ending Explained:
Can John Crack the Code and Save Them All?
The next morning, John finds Abby filling colors in the picture of Ezekiel’s vision, specifically the sun. John, having published a paper on super-flares earlier, takes this as a warning of a super-flare with 100 microtesla waves of radiation that would not only destroy the ozone layer but also kill every living being on the planet. Diana insists John take the kids to distant caves. They come back home to pack their bags. However, as they prepare to leave, John finds Caleb in the same trance-like state that we had Lucinda in, writing down numbers.
John understands that the missing numbers might be important to understand the puzzle. He breaks into the school and gets to the door where Lucinda has scratched the numbers with her fingers. The door, which has been painted and refurbished throughout the fifty years, does not bear the numbers anymore. John believes retrieving the numbers of the coordinates is important as through the last numbers that Lucinda had left, she tried to tell them where to go. Frustrated by John’s futile course of action, Diana drives away with the kids. John finds out that the coordinates are that of Lucinda’s mobile home and this is where they should go.
All mobile communication lines are dead due to superflares. Abby tells Diana that the mystery men are aware of their movements, whispering things into their heads. They stop briefly at a gas station, but while Diana is talking to John over the telephone, the mystery men drive the children away. Diana tries to pursue them but gets killed in a crash.
Did John Make the Right Choice Letting His Kids Go?
John finds the children at Lucinda’s mobile home and comes face to face with the four mysterious men who are extraterrestrial angels. Caleb says that the men have been protecting them from the beginning. A mysterious cloud above moves and opens to an interstellar ark. John’s sheer bafflement watching the ark appear resembles Ezekiel’s bewildered state when he sees God.
Caleb says that the mysterious angels are here to take them away so that they can start anew. However, John is not allowed to enter as he does not know how to communicate with the angels through whispering. Only the chosen ones are allowed to go with them, that is, those who can hear them whisper. Caleb despite his initial protestations at having to leave without John bids an emotional goodbye and leaves with Abby. Back in New York City, the solar flare is closer than ever. The riots have broken out as people try to flee. After keeping Caleb safe so that he does not have to experience doomsday, John drives back to his parent’s house to reconcile and spend his last moments with his family.
Where do the children go?
The Earth’s entire surface is charred as the unbounded solar flares penetrate the ozone layer. However, the children survive as they traverse the astral plane. The arks leave as their duties have been fulfilled. In the end, Caleb and Abby run through the beautiful and angelic fields towards a marvelous white tree. The tree can very well be perceived as the tree of life.
Read More: 10 Best Nicolas Cage Movie Performances
Trailer:
Knowing (2009) Movie Links: IMDb, Rotten Tomatoes, Wikipedia, Letterboxd
The Cast of Knowing (2009) Movie: Nicolas Cage, Rose Byrne, Chandler Canterbury
Knowing (2009) Movie Genre: Sci-Fi/Mystery & Thriller | Runtime: 1h 55m
Where to watch Knowing
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