The Happening

When I first saw the trailer for 'The Happening', I was quite excited at the prospect of another film by M. Night Shyamalan. After all, I enjoyed all his previous films, save 'Lady in the Lake', and was sure he would deliver another breath-taking blockbuster. Sadly, I was wrong and while the film was not a turkey, it was not of the excellence I had expected.

The film sees some sort of mysterious ecological event leading to people committing mass suicide, the phenomenon spreading first from large cities then to smaller towns until it is clear a huge chunk of the East Coast is affected. At first, it is assumed to be a terrorist attack but, as more and more people are spontaneously kill themselves, it is clear the cause may be something else entirely...

One of the problems with the film was the quality of the acting and the characters themselves. Mark Wahlberg stars as Elliot, the science teacher who is our main protagonist, and he does flounder in many scenes as if he forgets he's playing an intelligent but ordinary everyday guy, not a gung-ho military hero who is cool in all situations. He could have injected more emotion into his performance. Zooey Deschanel plays Elliot's girlfriend Alma and she too fails to make the audience care for her with the way she depicts the character to be some sort of an escapee from a teeny-booper romance flick. To be fair, it is not entirely Deschanel's fault as Alma is a weak, self-centred character with the emotional capacity of a young adolescent (for example, she puts Elliot and a child at risk a couple of times with her stupid decisions and, at the start, when it's clear people are dying, she is in a huff because Elliot and his friend 'hurt' her feelings).

When it comes to the actual storyline, the plot does start off intriguingly and there are many chilling moments when we see people are coolly committing suicide like mindless zombies. However, the finale doesn't deliver what the build-up promised. There are no real explanations or solid end result. In many ways, this film is similar to Shyamalan's previous project 'Signs' both in terms of a mass disaster and no real end resolution to the events but 'Signs' worked better because the characters were more effectively portrayed and their personal storyline was enough of a finale to compensate. This is not the case in 'The Happening' where the storyline fizzles out.

Overall, this is by no means a terrible film. It is enjoyable and fits nicely into the apocalyptic genre but 'Signs' has done this sort of idea before and did it better. That said, there was not only moments that had me on the edge of my seat but also lines which were quite humorous. And certainly, it does make one think about the state of the planet in regards to whether humanity does have it coming to them and how we would cope in such an event. It is worth a look, especially in a week when the other premiere is 'The Hulk, a film aimed at keeping twelve-year-olds' entertained.

I'm a Shyamalan fan. He's not afraid to take chances. And he believes in himself and his story. Most of the time, that helps. Gems like Unbreakable en The Village would never have seen the light of day if someone other than Shyamalan came up with it. His direction always makes sure his story gets the maximum effect. I like his screenplays because they always consist of two things: originality and well written characters. His new feature has neither. It's that simple. As a Shyamalan fan, I felt this disappointment a little with Lady in the Water. But now, it's twice in a row.

In a nutshell: Beginning in Central Park NYC, people are effected what is first believed to be a neurotoxine causing people to behave irrational, even to the point of suicide. But then the survivors start to uncover signs that it's not terrorists, but nature itself spreading this virus: yes, it's nature against men. And nature is winning.

I thought Wahlberg was a very poor choice. His range as an actor is far too narrow to play in any production that needs a little nuance. In other words: he shouldn't be in anything else than a movie about cops or (ex-)marines. Also the rest of the cast is surprisingly aloof. This includes Zooey Deschanel, who looks like she's a live-action version of a Manga character. Can those eyes be any wider?

The way the information is brought to the viewer is simple. There is a hinge of a critical message about massmedia, how we get our information and how we as a society are depended on TV, mobiles phones etc. to get in touch with each other. But it's nothing major. Because there really isn't much to tell. The first 15 minutes are the most interesting. Although the very first scene with the two women on a bench in the park (in hindsight) is telling. I really had my doubts about everything: the acting, the actions taken by the characters, the total mood and feel of the film. Once it goes into the 2nd act, the movie becomes more and more (non intentional) laughable and silly.

After seeing this I read that Shyamalan intended this to be an expensive B-movie, in the tradition of Romero etc. If that's the case, then my original rating of 5 (outta 10) should be a 3. Because nowhere in the movie does this become apparent. If you want a good homage, take a look at Zach Snyder's Dawn of the Dead (although that's really a remake.) I don't like a these talented filmmakers who want to take $100 million budgets, to make movies who look like they've been made for $10.000. But at least someone like Tarantino or Rodriquez adds originality and a real love for the genre.

The Happening is really bad as a serious film. As an homage it's boring and without heart. Take your pick. But you will be disappointed either way.

After the hype created by Bird Box, it is worth revisiting The Happening which was critically mauled upon its release.

The reason might be M Night Shyamalan who wrote, produced and directed this film. His success in movies such as The Sixth Sense and Unbreakable meant that critics were just sharpening their knives and waited for him to fail.

It starts off shockingly as people kill themselves in New York, such as throwing themselves off a building. The mass suicides soon spreads and the authorities initially think it is some kind of a biological terrorist attack.

Elliot Moore (Mark Wahlberg) is a science teacher at high school in Philadelphia. When the school hears about happening in New York, it causes a mass panic.

Elliot, his wife Alma (Zooey Deschanel) fellow teacher Julian (John Leguizamo) and his young daughter Jess try to escape Philadelphia on the train. The train comes to a halt and they are stranded in the countryside.

Julian goes back to look for his wife who could not make it on the train. Elliot tries to figure out what is causing this phenomenon as they witness more disturbing suicides. He thinks there is something in nature, especially the countryside that is causing the happening.

Shyamalan was let down by Mark Wahlberg, the most unconvincing high school science teacher. Zooey Deschanel was not much better. I know she is supposed to have marriage problems but there was no chemistry here between the actors. Leguizamo would had been better as the lead.

The film itself is much better than its reputation deserves. There is an environmental subtext to it. It is eerie, disturbing and mysterious. I can understand what Shyamalan tried to do and he largely succeeded with a psychological apocalyptic horror. It would had been better with stronger actors.

Allow me to provide some background information on my relationship with the films of M. Night Shyamalan: I adored "The Sixth Sense" and still think of it as one of the best films of 1999 and one of the best supernatural thrillers in ages. "Unbreakable" was a fascinating take on the superhero genre. I loved parts of "Signs" to bits and consider the sequence in the basement towards the end of the film one of the finest examples of suspenseful build-up in recent film history. I even liked "The Village" and could easily dismiss "Lady in the Water" as a mere misfire. I was greatly anticipating "The Happening", especially as it seemed to be echoing one of my favorite guilty pleasures- the paranoid 70's sci-fi thriller.

Let's get one thing out of the way- "The Happening" is unbelievably, impossibly, ridiculously, hilariously, inconceivably bad. Normally I would refuse to rate any film that had any good scenes or that was well-directed less than four out of ten, but "The Happening" has to have one of the worst scripts among recent big-budget Hollywood films. It's absolutely shocking how retarded the logic behind this is and how poor so much of the dialogue is. This script began as "The Green Effect", a tremendously poor (trust me, I read parts of it) script by Shyamalan that was soundly rejected and eventually reworked into "The Happening". Having seen the critical reaction to "The Happening" prior to going into the film I found myself pleasantly surprised by basically the first thirty, forty minutes of the film. It was nothing special but it had something going for it, Shyamalan's direction was top-notch, and Wahlberg was playing the sort of goofy science teacher I'd loved (and loved to hate on occasion) in high school.

Then the descent began. The bulk of this film is some of the most hilariously awful crap produced by a talented filmmaker since Schaffner's "Sphinx". Shyamalan, who was using close-ups and steadicam shots to frankly brilliant effect early on, begins to use the same shots to comical effect. There is one painfully, painfully long close-up of Mark Wahlberg pleading for time to think and then calling for his group to 'keep ahead of the wind' that is up there with Nicolas Cage in "The Wicker Man" in terms of hilariously awful acting. That scene may very well be the turning point in the film, with Wahlberg's acting becoming more ridiculous by the second, culminating in a performance that essentially wipes from memory all his tremendous recent achievements as an actor. I don't blame Wahlberg for this, I blame Shyamalan. Wahlberg claims Shyamalan tried to force him into real paranoia so his performance would work better. What happens here (no pun intended) is that Wahlberg ends up looking amazingly uncomfortable for the last hour of this thing and struggles to deliver any reasonable line deliveries.

Okay, I do have to credit Zooey Deschanel for making this movie watchable. Besides being amazingly, ridiculously gorgeous she is a fine actress and creates a sympathetic character (and a fairly well-drawn one at that- one of the few pros in Shyamalan's script). There's also the score: oh my it's gorgeous. Seriously, ignore this film and just buy the score CD by James Newton Howard- it's brilliant.

"The Happening" starts out well but ends up being an absolute embarrassment. I was prepared for a mediocre offering- perhaps a misguided effort such as "Lady in the Water". I was not expecting a disaster on the level of "The Happening". Its last forty minutes and especially its last ten minutes or so are among the worst I have seen in a long time.

Have you ever wondered if it was possible for a film to go from enjoyable to absolutely horrendous in the space of ten or fifteen minutes? "The Happening" is proof that it can, pardon the (intentional) pun, happen.

3/10

Shyamalan has proved to us earlier that he can be as good as the best with masterpieces of cinema with The Sixth Sense and Unbreakable. Yet, since then, he has declined steadily. Signs and Village were good movies, but with Lady in the Water and now The Happening, he has touched a level of incompetence that could never have been expected of him.

The Happening is about a pandemic that is gripping north-eastern USA. It starts with a stunning sequence of events that show people succumb to an unspecified threat – the brilliance of this opening repeated only once more for a five-minute sequence towards the end of the movie. Unfortunately, Shyamalan's writing is a big let-down for the rest. As the focus moves from metropolitans to towns and from crowds to smaller groups, the sense of fear is lost – the biggest sin a horror movie can commit. In the oft repeated criticism for its director, this movie would have been best served as a half-hour episode of Twilight Zone to make it really work.

And to add woe, the actors do not do much to better the experience – Mark Wahlberg and Zooey Deschanel are grossly miscast as the protagonists. Any of his previous leading men (Bruce Willis, Mel Gibson, Joaquin Phoenix and Paul Giamatti) can be imagined to have done a better job for the Science teacher that Wahlberg plays. The camera scrutinizes the performance to a degree that requires an actor with strength in emotions – Wahlberg instead brings a physical presence that the role does not need. Zooey, on the other hand, struts around like in a Disney movie, not for once threatened by the pandemonium.

This time, though Shyamalan humbles his vanity – you don't see him on screen. He now should swallow his pride and leave the writing to the writers. Armed with a better script, we can still expect Shyamalan to make his future movies worth waiting for. For now it is only the memory of the opening sequence, which can be proclaimed as mind-numbing greatness, which is really worth taking away from this movie.