The Happening

This movie can be summed up very easily, interesting but lacking plot. M Night spent too much of his budget on casting Wahlberg to afford sufficient special effects to give this movie a cleaner look. With as poor as the effects in this movie are it makes you wonder what they spent the 60 million dollar budget on, they clearly could not have spent anywhere near that The Matrix had a 63 million dollar budget...

This is a suspenseful thriller with a mediocre plot. By far it is M Night's worst movie. There is a reason why this movie was written, directed, and produced by him, because no one else was willing to take a chance with it and after seeing the film you will understand why.

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.

I'm not sure exactly why this movie has been bashed and low rated so much, maybe it's just a bandwagon thing? I'll admit it's no movie of the year and was a little cheese at parts. However overall it was actually quite entertaining, the plot moves along steadily and it was a standard 90 minutes. Anyway long story short my last point is that I believe M.Night was attempting to do a sort of throwback to the 50's and 60's era of film making. I see many Hitchcock styling within this film and I think he actually did an excellent job of creating a modern version of "The Birds" I mean let's face it this is the birds re-done. and re-done fairly well. The color, the music, the overall atmosphere, quite similar and well done. Maybe kids these days just can't appreciate this type of film, maybe they would low rank The Birds as well. As for the claims on "confusion" or not being realistic enough I don't understand that either. I think it is fairly clear that the cause is not going to be understood but likely has something to do with the plants and some sort of biologically active chemicals they emit. This is actually completely within the realm of possible. Trees and shrubs release chemicals into the air that can have subtle and sometimes overwhelming affects on human emotion and behaviour. Example is essential oils (the oils in plants that give them their smells).

Love him or hate him, Shama has a quirky vision and some very interesting ideas in his films. He also works with some paltry budgets by Hollywood standards, and cares more about story than effects. Does it always work? No. But considering just how effective his best work is - - 6th Sense, Unbreakable, Signs, The Visit--it's a pretty great body of work. I predict there will be a reappraisal of his work in the future, and with some bigger budgets and some careful rewrites, his remakes will reveal what a brilliant guy he is.

The Happening is a small movie - - simple concept, low budget - - that doesn't try to be anything other than what it is, a cool spooky flick about a mysterious pandemic of suicide gripping the Northeast. Sign me up! Even if it comes across as lightweight by the end, like The Village, these armchair auteurs who trash MNS should try making even half an effective film as those two.

Good for a rainy afternoon, probably not much else. But that's fine with me.

Yes, there are of course bad things about this movie, don't get me wrong. Specifically, the line delivery and script were pretty dumb and much of the acting was wooden and unconvincing. There was only one good performance (Mrs. Jones). Some directing choices weren't that good either, but other than that I thought the tension built well and the premise of the story was interesting and original, and the beginning of the movie for the most part was captivating. There were some well-executed emotional and scary scenes as well! I don't believe that this is a bad movie and I was surprised to not be completely dissatisfied!