“The Happening” is Not Happening

What's Happening?

There’s a pivotal scene in The Happening in which Mark Walhberg’s character Elliot turns to the camera, and with a sense self-referencing deprecation says, “This can’t be happening.” Whether he’s referring to the impending doom that may befall him on screen or is breaking the fourth wall to assess why he actually took the lead role in director M. Night Shyamalan’s latest failed attempt at a thriller is still a mystery to me, although I’m willing to hedge my bets on the later.

Set in Philadelphia, The Happening, tells the story of a “mysterious condition” that causes normal, every day people to commit suicide. Some leap from buildings, some bash their heads into a wall until they crack their skulls open and others simply put a bullet in their heads.

Following the lives of high school teacher Elliot, his wife Alma (Zooey Deschanel) and Jess, (Ashlyn Sanchez) who becomes the couple’s ward her fathe Julian (John Leguizamo), succumbs to the mysterious ailment, the trio assess the situation and journey westward with other Philly residents where they’re told that this epidemic isn’t…um, happening. Ultimately the film is a hodge-podge of poorly cut together scene filled with Wahlberg and company running in the fields and being scared of the wind.

Who's afraid of the big bad plants?

Literally.

Unlike the rest of Shyamalan’s films, his signature “twist” is told during the beginning of the second act, which of course prompts one to wonder why they’re still watching the film. Surely it can’t be because of Deschanel’s acting, which is as compelling as watching a tree sway in the wind.

Although The Happening isn’t Shyamalan’s worst film, (that honor goes to Lady in the Water), it certainly is his stupidest, in the sense that it’s devoid of any semblance of thought, reality and relentlessly insults the intelligence of anyone who watches it. The Happening’s only saving grace is that Shyamalan didn’t find a way to write himself into the story.*

*Although Ethan Alter says that he’s does manage to inject his voice into a scene.