In just five minutes, Shymalan establishes the unique social fabric into which this story’s various plot threads will be woven, providing a vision of intensely interdependent community bound together by crisis, hard work, and a commitment to inclusivity.

The Village opens with a funeral, the camera pushing slowly over the heads of a crowd to rest upon a man crumpled over the coffin of his only child. Those observing this personal calamity do not return to distant homes after the ceremony, there to contemplate sending flowers, card, or donation to their grieving friend, and they will not slowly forget his troubles in the crush of their own. While they will return to their own households with nightfall, tomorrow they will rise to offer renewed comfort to their neighbor. You see, these characters live together in a small village of their own creation. The next time the grieving man collapses in tears—be it a week from now or a month—they will be waiting nearby, ready with whatever measure of physical or emotional consolation he requires.

Finding the time and opportunity to visit their friend will not be difficult because, as the next scene shows us, this community eats and rests as it works, together. Its members disperse from the funeral only to congregate on the dining green, seating themselves along a series of joined tables covered with the simple fruits and breads of their labor. This second gathering resembles more a family meal than the cafeteria-style layout familiar to the modern, low-income epicurean: instead of grabbing their food in haste and dispersing to separate tables differentiated by shared affinities or blood ties, this community breaks bread together, taking bites in a relaxed, meditative rhythm. The responsibilities of vocation and family are laid aside without anxiety about work schedules or pressing deadlines.

When an ominous sound from the woods arrests their meal and draws them together in dread born of the movie’s central mystery, the community’s uniqueness stands out in still starker relief. Seated amidst this mixed collection of children, teenagers, and adults is a profoundly intellectually disabled adult. While the others cower in fear at the strange noise, Noah stands up and responds with excited laughter and clapping. Noah is not ejected from the table or shamed into silence, but expresses and then quiets himself with no more than a glance from his peers. That his parents regularly bring him to the public table at all, and that we later see him actively involved in the village’s recreation, underscores the radically democratic nature of this small community whose citizens share responsibility for one another’s care and general well-being.

It’s the kind of tightly knit community Tracey and I’d like to join someday.

Unfortunately, creating such an idyllic social space in the real world seems pretty difficult unless you have an Amish or Quaker tradition at your back. The Village suggests that reproducing such a simple lifestyle, one that breeds disinterest in material gain and encourages cooperation instead of competition, requires a certain measure of separation from society at large. This particular community accomplishes the desired isolation via a big fat lie, one whose discovery would undo all they have accomplished. Driven by fear to abandon urban life and all its assorted, sordid dangers, the creators of this community ironically reproduce that same base emotion to create artificial protections around their little utopia. Doesn’t seem like an emotionally healthy or very viable model for interested parties like myself.

The second problem with this attractive village concerns its isolation from a world unaware that it even exists. Not only is this invisibility implausible, such complete separation from society presents certain ideological difficulties. Is virtue born of artifice really virtue? Is the child-like innocence of this community’s young adults worth the ignorance required to create it? And if such a model community could exist, should it not be visible for the benefit of the observing masses? Or is the risk of contagion just too great?

As today’s headlines remind us, such communities’ attempts to keep evil influences away are only ever imperfect. I pray the Amish community in Pennsylvania that lost a number of their children to a shooting this morning find the courage to continue their way of life.

I imagine they will.

If more families shared resources with and responsibilities for one another instead of putting our extra time into maintaining our own, separate domiciles, we’d probably be better able to roll with the kind of punch that just struck this Amish community. If we chose to live messier, overlapping lives instead of being so concerned about micro-managing the environment to which we and our children retreat in the evenings, we’d be richer in all the ways that truly matter. Think of how much money and time goes into maintaining separate houses, lawns, gardens, and cars. It’s shaming to consider the amount of money that could be sent to impoverished communities in, say, Africa if just a few families shared more of their resources, or of how many people could be freed to serve one another and the poor here in our own cities if we held in common the care of one another’s children.

But, no. We’re afraid. We’re afraid that we might not have enough money to support ourselves in our old age if we dole out our funds helping one another right now. We’re afraid that if we loan tools, toys, or vehicles to our neighbors, we might not get them back in working condition. We’re afraid that if we share housing with someone else, they might pull out at the wrong moment and leave us with enormous bills to foot. We’re afraid that if we allow others to watch our kids, they might mess up their moral development, explode the behavior modification systems we’ve so carefully constructed, or, worse, molest them.

And we’re afraid that we’ll lose our distinctiveness. After all, if everything is held in common, who are we, really? It’s frightening to consider how much of our middle-class identity rest upon ideas, possessions, and experiences whose very value lies in the fact that not everyone has access to those same ideas, possessions, and experiences.

We live little lives bound by an awful lot of invisible fears. I think the unarticulated anxieties we nurture in order to keep our lives far apart are even worse than the lies Shymalan’s villagers tell themselves to keep their community together.

We are without excuse.