Knowing

PLOT

In 1959, a Lexington, Massachusetts elementary school celebrates its opening with a competition in which students draw what they believe will happen in the future; the works will be stored in a time capsule that will be opened in fifty years. All of the children create visual works except for Lucinda Embry, who is guided by whispering voices to fill her paper with a series of numbers with no apparent meaning. Before she can write the final numbers, the allotted time for the task expires and the teacher collects the students' drawings. The next day, as the time capsule is buried, the teacher finds Lucinda in a utility closet, engraving the remaining numbers into the door with her fingernails.

In 2009, the current class opens the time capsule and distributes the drawings inside among the students. Lucinda's sheet is given to Caleb Koestler, the nine-year-old son of widowed MIT astrophysics professor John Koestler. John recognizes the date and number of victims of the September 11 attacks in New York and realizes that Lucinda's numbers contain numbers that perfectly predict the dates and death tolls of major catastrophes over the past fifty years. However, three of the reported events have yet to happen, and one of the dates corresponds to the following day.

The next day, John is present at a plane crash. He recognizes that Lucinda's sheet also contains the geographical coordinates of the events. Interpreting the following numbers, John tries and fails to prevent a disaster in New York - a subway train collision. John becomes convinced that his family has a significant role in these incidents: his wife died in one of the earlier events reported by Lucinda, while Caleb was the one to receive Lucinda's message. Meanwhile, Caleb begins hearing the same whispering voices as Lucinda. To prevent the last event, John tracks down Lucinda's daughter Diana and her granddaughter Abby. After some initial disbelief, Diana goes with John to Lucinda's childhood home, where they find a copy of Matthäus Merian's engraving of Ezekiel's "chariot vision", in which a great sun is represented. They also discover that the final two digits of Lucinda's message are not numbers, but two reversed letter E's, matching the message left by Lucinda under her bed: "Everyone Else". During this search, Caleb and Abby, who were left asleep in the car, have an encounter with the beings who are the source of the whispers. Diana tells John that her mother had always told her the date she (Diana) would die. He also visits Lucinda's teacher who tells him of the scratching on the door left by Lucinda.

The next day, Abby colors in the sun on the engraving, which gives John a revelation. He rushes to the MIT observatory and learns that a massive solar flare with the potential to destroy all life will hit the Earth on the last date indicated by the message. As Diana and Abby prepare to take refuge underground, John goes to the school and finds the door on which Lucinda engraved the final numbers, and identifies them as coordinates of a place where he believes that salvation from the solar flare can be found. The disbelieving and hysterical Diana loads both Caleb and Abby into her car and flees for the caves. At a gas station, the whispering beings steal her car with Caleb and Abby inside. Diana pursues them at speed (in a stolen SUV) but is killed in a traffic accident involving a semi-truck, on the date her mother predicted. The beings take Caleb and Abby to Lucinda's mobile home, where John encounters them shortly thereafter. The beings, who act as extraterrestrial angels, are leading children to safety on interstellar arks. John is told he cannot go with them because he never heard the whispering, so he convinces Caleb to leave with Abby, and two pet rabbits they found, and both are transported away by the beings. The following morning, John drives through a chaotic Boston to his parents' house, where he reconciles with his estranged father. The solar flare then strikes, destroying the Earth's atmosphere and all life on the planet. Meanwhile, the ark, along with others, deposits Caleb and Abby on another world resembling an earthly paradise, and departs. The two run through a field towards a large white mysterious tree (implied to be the Tree of life).

CAST

Nicolas Cage as Professor Jonathan "John" Koestler

Rose Byrne as Diana Wayland / Lucinda Embry (photograph)

Chandler Canterbury as Caleb Koestler

Joshua Long as Young Caleb

Lara Robinson as Young Lucinda Embry / Abby Wayland / Young Diana Wayland (photograph)

Nadia Townsend as Grace Koestler

Ben Mendelsohn as Professor Phil Beckman

Alan Hopgood as Reverend Koestler

Benita Collings as Mrs. Koestler

Adrienne Pickering as Allison Koestler

Liam Hemsworth as Spencer

Ra Chapman as Jessica

Lesley Anne Mitchell as Stacy

Sam Velasquez as Jackson Cinq

Gareth Yuen as Donald

Verity Charlton as Kim

Tamara Donnellan as Mrs. Embry

Travis Waite as Mr. Embry

D.G. Maloney, Joel Bow, Maximillian Paul, and Karen Hadfield as The Strangers

David Lennie as Principal Clark in 1959

Carolyn Shakespeare-Allen as Principal in 2009

Alethea McGrath as Priscilla Taylor in 2009

Danielle Carter as Priscilla Taylor in 1959