One small spoiler in this review has been blacked out. It isn’t a giant spoiler, but it may affect your ability to watch this film from a fresh perspective. If you want to read the spoiler text just highlight the blacked out portion with your mouse.
It has become common practice to dislike an M. Night Shyamalan film even before it hits the big screen by many of what are to be considered “top critics”. I, however, choose to judge each film as I see them. I am a fan of Shyamalan as a director and a storyteller. I actually liked Lady in the Water quite a bit while I don’t really like Signs, one of Night’s bigger films. However, as for The Happening, I am sure I will be agreeing with more of the haters while most likely landing just above their spilling vitriol.
The Happening centers on the idea that an unknown toxin is causing infected humans to commit suicide. At the opening of the film the cause of the epidemic is assumed to be terrorism, but as the film goes on an alternate cause becomes more and more likely. The problem is that the actual villain in The Happening is either an invisible one or an inanimate one, depending on how you choose to look at it. Due to this fact, Night has to resort to ridiculous measures to create a menacing atmosphere, including scenes of wind in the grass and long shots of trees, and, of course, it doesn’t work.
In the lead role is Mark Wahlberg, reading lines as if he is reading them off a slow moving teleprompter. “What. Are. We. Going. To. Do?” And it’s in more of a dumbfounded way than a Bill Shatner way. Zooey Deschanel isn’t nearly as bad, but her character is paper thin and Night resorts to the cliched plot device of a troubled relationship to make the relationship interesting, which ultimately becomes one of the only sources of tension in the film, and I wouldn’t even call it all that tense.
Acting and characters aside, the largest problem with The Happening is in its villain. You can’t have people running away from an unseen force the entire time and expect the audience to actually get scared. Picture Wahlberg and Deschanel outrunning the wind with a youngster in tow. Yeah, outrunning the wind. Even if it works inside the story it just comes off as silly, which is something this film didn’t need.
The Happening would probably make for a phenomenal novel. As a scientific thriller, on the page, I am sure it would be enough to satisfy a lazy afternoon. All of M. Night’s films rely on the imagination of the audience and while he doesn’t shy away from showing the audience the gruesome nature of some of the suicides, you can’t “imagine” a toxin as it infects people as part of the oncoming wind. Primarily because all you see is… well… nothing.
As much as I wanted to love The Happening, this movie doesn’t work outside of the scripting stage. This isn’t to say it is altogether awful, and it may actually grow on me after seeing it on DVD, but I won’t be recommending it to many folks unless they are genuinely open to giving it a chance. While The Happening has a fair amount of stuff to like, there is just too much that doesn’t work.
