The Happening

...to be coming apart at the seams. However, this is the least of his worries when he finds himself at the centre of a mysterious occurrence. Suddenly hundreds of people start killing themselves for no apparent reason. It's as if a new plague has been unleashed on the world. First they become unable to speak, then they become disoriented and then they die. With rumours that it is the result of a terrorist attack or a military experiment gone wrong, ...
...a promising new filmmaking with the ability to shock an audience. But that was before he started believing his own hype and churning out nonsensical potboilers with twists that were just downright stupid. Sadly the downward spiral continues with this shoddy attempt at a thriller. It is crippled by a complete lack of tension. Instead of leading you to think one thing and then pulling the rug out from under you, the director signposts the reason for ... more

Elliot is a science teacher whose biggest problem is that his marriage to Alma seems to be coming apart at the seams. However, this is the least of his worries when he finds himself at the centre of a mysterious occurrence. Suddenly hundreds of people start killing themselves for no apparent reason. It's as if a new plague has been unleashed on the world. First they become unable to speak, then they become disoriented and then they die. With rumours that it is the result of a terrorist attack or a military experiment gone wrong, Elliot and his wife have to run for their lives.

There was a time when M Night Shyamalan was considered a promising new filmmaking with the ability to shock an audience. But that was before he started believing his own hype and churning out nonsensical potboilers with twists that were just downright stupid. Sadly the downward spiral continues with this shoddy attempt at a thriller. It is crippled by a complete lack of tension. Instead of leading you to think one thing and then pulling the rug out from under you, the director signposts the reason for the mass suicides every couple of minutes with close-ups of the offenders. You don't get to know the characters before "The Event" occurs (and every character refers to it as "The Event" - you can practically hear the quotation marks), so you don't know what they stand to lose. He kills off so many players on a regular basis that you soon become inured to it. So there's no shock value when somebody dies. His use of slow-motion in some cases is particularly ineffective because it feels so over-the-top. He replaces emotion with melodrama, so you don't care about any of the protagonists. It doesn't help that the movie is badly miscast or that Shyamalan fosters a style of acting that would make the cast of "Echo Beach" look like the Royal Shakespeare Company.

There is no sense of spectacle or the scale of "The Event". The film stock looks cheap and the locations are anonymous. There is a lack big set-pieces - one of the main "action" sequences features a load of actors running away from the wind (I kid you not!) and in another, Mark Wahlberg has a conversation with a ficus plant. But none of this works because it is so absurd and everyone involved is taking the whole thing way too seriously. The pacing stutters throughout as we bump from one non-event to another, right up until the here-we-go-again finale. Overall this feels like a stupendous waste of ninety-two minutes of anyone's time.

The problems with Shyamalan's latest screenplay are myriad. There used to be a time when you nearly gave yourself whiplash trying to spot the twist in his films, but here it's handed to you on a plate and is so damnably naff that a child writing their first story would dismiss it. By the time it heaved into sight, after some truly dreadful expository theorising, I was ready to knock myself unconscious through sheer irritation. And the clumsy attempt at an environmental moral at the end made me want to find the writer-director and cause him serious harm.

The characterisation is virtually non-existent, with everybody being either a bland everyman or a certifiable nut. The incidence of people with obvious mental health issues that Elliot and his wife encounter is way too high, from harmless gardeners that talk to their plants to gun-toting rednecks and crazy old shut-ins. It doesn't help that the main characters are so unlikeable. Elliot is a condescending teacher with about as much charisma as a head of cabbage and Alma is an erratic, self-absorbed emotional cripple. Their marital problems are dealt with as if they were soap opera plot points, so you won't give a monkey's about them. A whole host of supporting characters are introduced, only to be dispatched minutes later, so it's impossible to invest emotionally in anyone. And if you don't care about the characters, it doesn't matter if they survive. The dialogue is loaded with lumbering exposition and clunky theories that don't hold water. It is also incredibly stilted, to the point where it's almost impossible to listen to. Listening to the players is like being bludgeoned with someone else's stupidity. In fact the script is so hackneyed, it will probably make you want to rip your own ears off to escape it.

Mark Wahlberg isn't bad when he's playing a lunk-headed action hero, but as everyman Elliot he's so bland he almost isn't there. He looks vaguely bewildered throughout, but it isn't enough to convince you he has a personality or that there is anything going on behind his eyes. He has no chemistry with his on-screen wife and is too wet to be believable as a hero.

I usually like Zooey Deschanel, but she is truly awful as Elliot's wife Alma. She's supposed to be preoccupied by her own thoughts, but comes across as being completely spaced out when she isn't fidgeting like someone has put itching powder down her back. In addition to her monotone delivery, it makes Alma completely unbearable and I found myself hoping she wouldn't make it. John Leguizamo is far more appealing as Elliot's colleague Julian, but he isn't given enough screen-time to develop the role. It's sad that most of the adults are acted of the screen by newcomer Ashlyn Sanchez as Julian's daughter Jess. At least she's naturalistic.

The original music by James Newton Howard smothers the film in melodramatic brass and string arrangements that sound like themes from "Hammer House of Horror". Moments of supposed terror are drowned out by kettle drums and tolling chimes. Every allegedly emotional moment is slathered with syrupy strings which become more overblown as the film progresses, adding to the overall excesses of the movie. As with the rest of the production it is trying far too hard.

"The Happening" is a thoroughly dreadful movie. Writer-director M Night Shyamalan obviously thinks himself far cleverer than he is with his lamest plot twist yet. He takes a dodgy central conceit and makes a humungous mess of it. It lacks thrills, spills, scares, tension, likeable characters, a strong narrative through-line and a decent finale. The film is let down poor production values and terrible performances from the leads. After seeing this at the cinema, I was angry I had spent money on a ticket and angrier still that someone would give this filmmaking cretin the financial wherewithal to unleash his latest brain fart on the world. 

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