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The Happening

Buzz says:   MPAA Rating: R
Current Showtimes: No showtimes available

Be kind to the environment, for it could turn on us one day. This warning is bashed over one’s head while watching M. Night Shyamalan’s newest offering, The Happening. It all starts at 8:33 am in Central Park. The sun shines brightly as people go about their usual activities: jogging, reading on park benches, walking dogs. Soon the wind picks up, and screams can be heard from all around. A girl plunges a steel hair chopstick into her neck. Construction workers fall from the tops of buildings and splatter on the ground. People start to walk backwards and begin committing suicide at an alarming rate.

Fast forward to about 9:30 am in Philadelphia. It is here that we meet our protagonist, Elliot (Mark Wahlberg). Elliot is a science teacher, and he is conveniently lecturing on the recent absence of honeybees throughout the world when he gets word of the events in Central Park, which are thought to be the result of a terrorist attack. Before Elliot leaves his classroom, one student, in explanation for the disappearance of the bees, states that the reasons for nature’s actions may never be understood. Enter the rest of the movie…

Elliot meets up with wife Alma (Zooey Deschanel) and prepares to leave Philadelphia, as the city is not deemed safe if terrorists are indeed attacking. Alma and Elliot are experiencing some marital difficulties, as Alma never shows emotion and Elliot struggles to deal with his absent wife. The two join Elliot’s colleague, math teacher Julian (John Leguizamo) and his 8 year-old daughter Jess (Ashlyn Sanchez) and board a train out of the city. Soon the train shuts down, as connection with “everyone” is lost, and our protagonists must fend for themselves.

The rest of the film is a series of scenes in which the protagonists theorize, run from, and come to accept everything that is happening, which, it turns out, is not a terrorist attack at all but actually an environmental threat. The plants, it seems, have issued a defense mechanism against people by releasing toxins into the air that make people go crazy. As the environment strikes back, Shyamalan issues his main point: we have done this to ourselves.

The film fails on many levels. Wahlberg has never been weaker, as he delivers a phony performance in a role that already is seriously lacking character development. His dialogue is so bad it’s laughable, as is much of the script. Deschanel fares better, although all that is required of her is to look doe-eyed as all hell breaks loose around her. Leguizamo is the only thespian to come out with all of his dignity, as his character evokes some genuine sympathy, but sadly he does not get much screen time.

Now for the villain. I’m not giving anything away when I say that it’s the plants. The plants are responsible for everything. This is a very neat premise, but it lands dead on arrival as Shyamalan does not evoke any suspense out of a villain that is virtually everywhere at all times. Shots of wind-ruffled trees and bushes are supposed to be ominous, but they are actually tedious and dull. Shyamalan should know better than to expect to scare audiences by playing spooky music as it accompanies shots of shrubbery. A villain that has no weakness and cannot be escaped is terrifying and clever if handled with creativity, yet Shyamalan abandons the craft that made him famous (see Signs and The Sixth Sense) and just seems lazy.

The film has been heavily touted as Shyamalan’s first R-rated picture, a clever marketing strategy that upset me quite a bit. Although the film has some gory moments (one involving a tractor was bloody great, and a shot of dead bodies hanging from trees is haunting), it seems completely toned down for an R. Gore hounds will be disappointed if they are in the theater to see blood, and conventional audiences will not be disturbed by the rather tame blood and guts on screen.

Shyalaman used to make great, terrifying pictures that didn’t rely on gimmicks such as an R rating, and it is sad to see the once-promising filmmaker resort to such tactics. The Happening, although it saddens me to say this, may very well be the nail on Shyamalan’s coffin, the nail that signals the end of his once-promising career.