The Happening

The Happening (2008)



Directed by: M. Night Shyamalan

Starring: Mark Wahlberg, Zooey Daschel

Other Actors of note: John Leguizamo

Summary:The film revolves around a pandemic that begins in New York City, and quickly spreads across the eastern United States. The pandemic is a toxin apparently spread by the wind that has a devastating mental effect on humans. Victims that breathe the toxin become physically disoriented, exhibit loss of speech and then commit suicide by the closest means possible. Some victims kill themselves by jumping from buildings, throwing themselves into barbed wire, and driving vehicles into trees. Taken from Wikipedia.

"Look honey, I think I see your personality over there"

In the wake of 911 disaster movies have taken on a whole new tone. The Mist was about how in the face of crisis people will fall back on irrationality and superstitious belief and turn on one another and even calm rational thinking isn't even necessarily the right answer, War of the Worlds was about doing what it takes to protect those you love, Cloverfield was about going through hell to find a loved one, I Am Legend preached hope in the face of overwhelming odds, and Diary of the Dead spoke of some sort of outlaw heroism by showing the world the truth about what's going on through media.

So what's the Happening's big message? That's a very good question, I think it has to do with overpopulation or us destroying the environment or some such noise.

Pictured:The Man with no balls, the girl with no voice, and the woman with no soul.

The film opens in New York Central Park where two women are sitting on a bench reading a book, suddenly everyone freezes in place, some of them begin walking backward. As one friend stares in bewilderment the other pulls a large pin from her hair and jams it into her neck. The scene then flashes to a construction site where people begin jumping off the roof in droves. The scene is particularly haunting and well done.

So now we flash to Philadelphia where we meet our protagonist Elliot, a high school science teacher who is bewildered by the disappearing honeybees all over the world. Shortly after some exposition he's called out of his classroom to the auditorium where he's briefed by Principal That-Guy-Who-Played-Cameron-in-Ferris-Bueller (Alan Ruck) that a terrorist attack has just happened and they're closing school.

From this point on Elliot, his wife Alma (played by real life mannequin Zooey Daschanel), Julian (John Leguizamo), and his daughter Jess (Ashlyn Sanchez) get on a train out of Philadelphia. The train stops in a small town abruptly and the crew finds out they're in the middle of the strike zone and speed away to get out.

"Don't look into her eyes sweetie or she'll turn you to stone."

So now let's go on to performances. This shouldn't take long because there's only 3 worth nothing.

I'm sure by now you've all heard about how bad Mark Wahlberg is in this movie. Not true. The character Elliot is a dweeb, a HUGE dweeb and Wahlberg plays the part brilliantly. The thing is, since it's Mark Wahlberg we're expecting a lantern jawed deep voiced man's hero like Thomas Jane in the Mist. But whereas Jane played an "everyman", Wahlberg's more of a "that guy." He plays the character as it should be played, but even in that he's a bit weak.

John Leguizamo is the only one who appears to remember good acting and what it's like. The problem is he only has maybe 15 minutes of screen time. (But I assure you, those 15 minutes are much appreciated)

And now Zooey Daschanel. You may remember her from the movie Big Trouble adapted from the Dave Barry novel and starring Tim Allen and Ben Foster. She played the monotone sarcastic teenage daughter, and while I commended her for her monotone voice and general dull acting in Big Trouble, I wasn't aware that that was all she could do.

Zooey (cause I'm not going to keep typing Daschanel) is the most horrible actor in this movie. The only emotion she seems to be able to show is to either give a blank stare or smile, her voice never gives the impression of anything, she delivers her lines in a cold robotic way. She has all the personality of a block of wood, I swear GlaDOS was a more convincing human being.

There's even a scene where she confronts Leguizamo's daughter (who doesn't speak for the majority of the movie) and says "We're not so different you and I, I don't like to show emotion either." Which is very true, in fact she must fucking hate it more than racism and the holocaust.

"Oh shit, I forgot to get the final score on the Yankee's game!"

Having watched this movie and seen that it has an R rating I'm not sure why. Since language and nudity are out as I think Whalberg says fuck once and the nudest you see anyone is an old lady in a nightgown it would have to be on violence. But here's the deal, there's very little of it. The deaths are fairly clean, sure there's a bit of blood but not much. The needle in the neck is bloodless, bodies falling from the sky and flying through the windshield of a car aren't shown, people shooting themselves in the head is heard but not seen followed by them dropping to the ground with a neat little hole in their forehead. The infamous lawnmower death only shows a bit of blood spraying out the side before cutting away and the only gorey death in the film where a zookeeper feeds both his arms to lions pulls away when the first arm is torn off and then shows the second one being pulled off and quickly cuts away again. I didn't find this particularly any ballsier than anything done in The Sixth Sense, perhaps since it's living people it's a bit more traumatizing but not a great deal. Children's deaths are implied but I don't ever recall seeing one corpse under 20. The closest thing we have is woman's teenage daughter heard committing suicide on a speaker phone as well as two dumb teenagers who get shot breaking into a house both of whose deaths show very little.

The story is also a bit wonky. This whole thing branches around the bees disappearing but The Happening only seems to affect human beings as in several scenes dogs are shown unaffected which is strange considering it's an airborne toxin, and even the well put together theories within the film of the plants putting out the toxin leave a lot unexplained.

There's a lot of loose plot lines, many characters die before they seem to meet their potential and most of the movie is just a bunch of people running away from the wind. The Happening appears to be more about shock and spectacle than actual storytelling, it's reminiscent of Steven Spielberg's War of the Worlds in this way. Even the usual Shyamalan twist is less of a twist and more of a "I ran out of ideas, so I'm gonna do this now"

"Quickly! Everyone watch the TV ominously!"

The Happening's key problem seems to be that it doesn't go anywhere and we're not made to love the characters, we're just along for the ride. It's bland and slow like much of Shyamalan's other films but it does a better job of keeping interest than say Signs, The Village, or Lady in the Water did. It's not great but it's still watchable and somewhat enjoyable.

I give the Happening a 3 out of 5. Rent it or catch it on second release in theaters.