The Happening (2008) review

26. The Happening (2008)

Directed by: M. Night Shyamalan

Produced by: M. Night Shyamalan, Sam Mercer, Barry Mendel

Screenplay by: M. Night Shyamalan

Starring: Mark Wahlberg, Zooey Deschanel, John Leguizamo, Betty Buckley

There’s Good M. Night Shyamalan, and there’s Bad M. Night Shyamalan…and then there’s whatever the hell “The Happening” is. Shyamalan was maybe the hottest director in Hollywood at the start of the millennium, banging out critical and commercial hits with “The Sixth Sense,” “Unbreakable” and “Signs.” But just as suddenly, his career took a turn with the poorly reviewed “The Village,” the ridiculous “Lady in the Water,” and this would-be thriller about the Northeastern United States being besieged by airborne neurotoxins causing mass suicides. Despite an intriguing premise and sometimes foreboding imagery, the weird performances, clunky craft, and amateurish dialogue ruin any attempt at suspense, instead making it a dreary, logistically absurd flop.

A Philadelphia high school science teacher named Elliot (Mark Wahlberg) is called out of class when news breaks of people in New York City’s Central Park inexplicably killing themselves. He and his wife Alma (Zooey Deschanel) take a train out of town with his mathematician colleague Julian (John Leguizamo), accompanied by his daughter Jess (Ashlyn Sanchez), but the train stops short of its destination after losing all radio contact, as the phenomenon has begun spreading throughout Philadelphia, Boston, Princeton and beyond. Julian leaves Jess with Elliot and Alma to go look for his wife, while the trio hitches a ride with a nurseryman (Frank Collison) and his wife (Victoria Clark). He theorizes that the crisis—initially viewed as a bio-terrorist attack—is being caused by plants releasing toxins as a defense mechanism against humans, essentially switching off their survival instincts. Elliot believes it safer to avoid the toxins by traveling in a smaller group, so he, Alma and Jess split off into the countryside, looking for any means to stay alive.

There is something inherently interesting about the idea of nature fighting back against manmade destructions, which at least lends the notion that actual thought went into this. Some of the visuals help sell the horrific nature, like the sight of people stepping off skyscrapers or Julian’s car driving through a display of hung corpses. But when the movie tries to convey the message verbally, it loses all effectiveness. Shyamalan’s screenplays can contain decent mythology and pacing, but also egotistical preachings and dubious non sequiturs. Some of the more random conversations are about hot dogs, math riddles and mood rings; it’s okay to have some levity, but these all happen during the weirdest breaks in the action. The trio are eventually joined by two teenage boys Josh (Spencer Breslin) and Jared (Robert Bailey Jr.), and they just start giving Elliot weirdly specific relationship advice for no reason.

I think it’s fair to say that Mark Wahlberg has found his niche at playing eccentric tough guys, his former off-screen atrocities notwithstanding; I don’t think he’s great at it, but he’s made it work in various roles. Having him as this meek, bumbling science teacher is one heck of a stretch; I’m all for trying to play against type, but his mannerisms strike me as more of a gym coach who got a quick crash course in physiology so he could substitute for the real teacher. To be fair, however, everyone in this movie acts off, even before the toxins affect them. Zooey Deschanel has a really strange use of body language and speaking inflections, John Leguizamo is at least slightly believable in his awkwardness though still a pushy buttinsky, while the great Betty Buckley turns the ham factor up to 11 as the paranoid Mrs. Jones, who puts our heroes up for the night despite suspecting them of nefarious intentions.

Depending on the situations, the characters act like they either just met that day or are memorizing a broken translated script from another language a la “Troll 2.” I mean it, some of these lines are so unnaturally, incomprehensibly weird, while some are just downright lazy, like Shyamalan never bothered to open a thesaurus. Characters repeat the same phrases and trains of thought over and over, and even the way they’re shot doesn’t help. You get Shyamalan’s overuse of long panning shots; there’s one odd exchange at the train station where Elliot tells Julian that Alma’s in the restroom, and the camera shifts over to reveal Alma just standing there saying hello. Characters face the camera, and there’s a sense of claustrophobia that sets in without it feeling at all deliberate.

There’s a lot more I could say about what a colossal mess “The Happening” is, like the bizarrely elaborate suicide methods, nonsensical reasoning, and lifeless anticlimax, but suffice to say that this is one of the more bemusing idiotic thrillers you’ll ever see. I know it’s been re-evaluated over the years as a planned B-movie, but I don’t think it has the quaint charm to pull that off, so you’ll have to settle for unintentional hilarity. From what I’ve seen of his filmography, I think “Lady in the Water” is his most laughable stinker, but if this isn’t Shyamalan’s objectively worst film, it’s only because he got his hands on “The Last Airbender.” No, I’m not still salty about his desecration of a beloved TV show 13 years later, why do you ask? All joking aside, this is bad, but in a way that’s brought certain joy since its release.

My rating: 4.5/10