The Happening (2008)
Director: M. Night Shyamalan
Writer: M. Night Shyamalan
Starring: Mark Wahlberg, Zooey Deschanel, John Leguizamo, Bett Buckley, Ashlyn Sanchez
Language: English
Runtime: 90 Minutes approx.
Age Rating: 15
Genre: Mystery, Thriller, Horror
Reviewed by Ross Miller
It’s been almost ten years since writer/director M. Night Shyamalan unleashed The Sixth Sense on us all, a cinematic phenomenon both in its genius plot twist and how it has affected modern day films. Whenever the word "twist" gets mentioned in relation to movies most people will immediately think of that film. He followed that with the sombre and very effective Unbreakable, which in my opinion is his finest work, and then the underrated Signs. The Village was one of the worst excuses for a horror film I had seen in years when it came out, with the twist being particularly laughable, and I dodged his reportedly putrid Lady in the Water for obvious reasons.
After two serious bumps in the road, Shyamalan has come back with The Happening. And I am sad to inform that despite some genuinely creepy moments, it's a failed exercise for the most part, a case of the creator having a great initial idea and not having a clue where to go with it. Without giving too much away, The Happening revolves around a family on the run from a large-scale threat to humanity. Most of the point of the film is knowing as little as possible going in.
The initial idea of The Happening, the selling point if you will, is that one day, for seemingly no reason, people just drop dead. We learn throughout the early sections of the movie that they actually kill themselves and the people who haven’t yet done so believe that it’s the work of terrorists. But as the movie goes on, stranger things keep happening and the likelihood that it's terrorists who are behind it becomes “less and less likely.” The initial novelty of the idea only lasts so long, let's say till about half-way through, and then it becomes kind of boring. There’s only so much of seeing the at-first shocking act of someone committing suicide before it gets a bit repetitious.
In those aforementioned scenes, particularly in the first stages of the film, of seeing people commit suicide it is occasionally very creepy indeed. Most of the film has this nerving, upbeat theme accompanied with ominous tones that effectively save the film from being a bad one. There are moments which allow the true talent of Shyamalan to shine through, echoes of the creepier moments in Signs for example, but unfortunately those are few and far between.
The film also has some admirable commentary on the whole global warming thing that’s going on in the real world. I sense that there will be a fair few fictional films which will tackle the subject, either blatantly or subtly, in the upcoming years.
I expect Shyamalan sat around for weeks on end trying to come up with the idea for this movie, thinking of a way he could come back effectively after his previous two duds. And I also expect that when he came up with the very first idea of this he thought he had an automatic winner on his hands, no matter how he wrote the script, who starred in it and how it all came together. I think his problem is he’s a much better director than he is a screenwriter, it seems liked he didn’t know where to go with the decent enough idea he initially had and he definitely should have got someone else to either co-write or write the screenplay all by themselves. Shyamalan has always been an idea-dependent filmmaker and it just so happens that it’s taken a few years for that to truly show.
Everyone is no doubt wondering whether or not Shyamalan will have a twist at the end as per usual and whether or not it will be a shocking one. Well I think the real twist of The Happening is the very fact that there isn’t really one. There is a kind of “leave you hanging” mentality going on but there’s no outright shock factor just before the closing credits roll. I was kind of expecting that he might pull this trick (of not having a twist) and I expected to admire that. But as it turns out it didn’t really work in his favour.
I think the word which accurately sums up my feelings about The Happening is "underwhelming." I expected a whole lot more from it than it ultimately delivered, the trailers in particular looked great. Most of the cast, in particular Mark Wahlberg, look like they’d rather be in another movie and it just overall fails to work in the way it should. Here’s hoping Shyamalan comes up with something better next time around.
