Title: The Happening. Cast: Mark Wahlberg, Zooey Deschanel, John Leguizimo, Ashlyn Sanches, Betty Buckley, Spencer Breslin, Robert Bailey, Jr., Frank Collison, Jeremy Strong, Alan Ruck, Victoria Clark Director and Writer: M Night Shayamalan Location: United States, India Running Time: 90 minutes
Technical Assessment: 3
Moral Assessment: 2
CINEMA rating: For viewers 18 years old and above
CINEMA rating: For viewers 18 years old and above
The Happening opens with workers at a construction site falling one after the other to their deaths. Elsewhere, in New York’s Central Park, the leaves stir in a lingering breeze that emits an eerie wailing sound; promenaders lose control of their movements and memory, stopping dead and walking backward on their tracks without knowing or remembering why. Then, apparently in a trance, they kill themselves. News of the weird happening reaches the classroom of Philadelphia high school teacher Elliot Moore (Mark Wahlberg). They are discussing the mysterious and sudden disappearance of millions of honey bees when the school administration calls a meeting to send the students home as the New York tragedy, feared to be another terrorist attack, seems to be creeping into Philadelphia. Elliot, his wife Alma (Zooey Deschanel), a friend and fellow teacher Julian (John Leguizamo), and Julian’s daughter Jess (Ashlyn Sanchez) flee to safer grounds on a train. Trouble brews as the train, brimming over with anxious passengers, stops at a deserted station where the train personnel admit they have lost contact with everyone.
Seeing “Directed by M Night Shayamalan” on the screen as the film opens makes the viewer expect a superior mystery thriller. After all, the director has made a name for himself crafting off-the-beaten-path stories of terror bearing a profound and relevant message: Signs, The Village, etc. The first ten minutes or so of The Happening delivers the chills, like a blast of cold air when you open a freezer, but beyond that it seems to thaw out. Sights and sounds are effective—the leaves fluttering ominously in the wind and wailing manifest the power of the unseen to terrify. The broken bodies on the ground, a hairpin stabbed into a woman’s jugular—such things have their shock value, but their impact is short-lived. Wahlberg is a great actor, but the character he’s portraying is too bland for his talents. As for the other actors—they simply do what their part asks for, which isn’t much.
Would you bother to see a mystery thriller that fails to mystify or thrill you most of the time? Then lower your expectations. Since The Happening is not supposed to be an ordinary “scary movie” but one that is hoped to stimulate and engage your intellect into pondering life’s deeper riddles, you would at least expect to learn something worthwhile out of it. Surely The Happening is trying to say something; it just didn’t seem to know how to say it—which leads you to conclude that it doesn’t know what it wants to say. When the movie says the mass suicides are induced by an invisible airborne “natural compound” (that once inhaled makes you want to savagely kill yourself), is it warning us against abusing our environment? Not clear. When after running for their lives the Moore couple (wanting to die together) expose themselves to the deadly wind and survive, is the movie saying “love conquers all”? Not sure. When the creative juices are running dry but the director wants to continue piggy-back riding on past success, what happens? The Happening turns out to be not much of a happening.
Seeing “Directed by M Night Shayamalan” on the screen as the film opens makes the viewer expect a superior mystery thriller. After all, the director has made a name for himself crafting off-the-beaten-path stories of terror bearing a profound and relevant message: Signs, The Village, etc. The first ten minutes or so of The Happening delivers the chills, like a blast of cold air when you open a freezer, but beyond that it seems to thaw out. Sights and sounds are effective—the leaves fluttering ominously in the wind and wailing manifest the power of the unseen to terrify. The broken bodies on the ground, a hairpin stabbed into a woman’s jugular—such things have their shock value, but their impact is short-lived. Wahlberg is a great actor, but the character he’s portraying is too bland for his talents. As for the other actors—they simply do what their part asks for, which isn’t much.
Would you bother to see a mystery thriller that fails to mystify or thrill you most of the time? Then lower your expectations. Since The Happening is not supposed to be an ordinary “scary movie” but one that is hoped to stimulate and engage your intellect into pondering life’s deeper riddles, you would at least expect to learn something worthwhile out of it. Surely The Happening is trying to say something; it just didn’t seem to know how to say it—which leads you to conclude that it doesn’t know what it wants to say. When the movie says the mass suicides are induced by an invisible airborne “natural compound” (that once inhaled makes you want to savagely kill yourself), is it warning us against abusing our environment? Not clear. When after running for their lives the Moore couple (wanting to die together) expose themselves to the deadly wind and survive, is the movie saying “love conquers all”? Not sure. When the creative juices are running dry but the director wants to continue piggy-back riding on past success, what happens? The Happening turns out to be not much of a happening.
