The Happening

Cast: Mark Wahlberg, Zooey Deschanel, John Leguizamo, Betty Buckley, Frank Collison, Ashlyn Sanchez

With the tagline ‘We've Sensed It. We've Seen The Signs. Now... It's Happening’ there’s a hint that Mr Shyamalan may be attempting to draw on the success of the first movie, if not the second, where he plainly didn’t read the signs of his waning credibility as a director of note. The Happening is another disappointment. An apocalyptic, plot-driven piece in which a sudden mysterious epidemic of suicides hit the north eastern coast of North America, there is little to recommend it, not even the wasted talents of Mark Wahlberg, Zooey Deschanel and John Leguizamo – all of them notably shackled by a directorial agenda that veers distractedly at unconvincing character elements and jarring dialogue.

The plot is simple. En masse, people in Central Park New York City stop in confusion and physical disorientation, then robotically kill themselves using whatever is to hand. Is it bio-terrorism? Perhaps a secret government experiment? A deadly virus? Much the same process has been previewed for us in the opening scene when Philadelphia high school science teacher Elliot Moore (Wahlberg) asks his bored class to explain why honey bees have begun disappearing world wide. Global warming causing disorientation, perhaps? Ah, no, the conclusion is an act of nature that none of us will fully understand. After the class has gone, the camera comes to rest on the blackboard, where the inscription ‘If bees disappeared from the face of the earth, man has just four years to live’ helpfully underscores the ominous tone of dire consequences for human mismanagement of this planet.

The karmic message is current and the hints at 'energy emanations' topical but the handling is far too obvious, as is the entire structure of this movie. No doubt it’s intentional that nearly all the interpersonal communications between characters miss their mark. Similarly that everyone manifests a range of dysfunction from neurosis through harmless greenie nuttiness to full blown paranoia and psychosis. The effect on the viewer, however, is disjointed and does the opposite of engaging us sympathetically with the characters. Where Steven King would have made them archetypal (The Mist) and Danny Boyle and his screenwriter for 28 Days Later, Alex Garland, would have made them intriguing, admirable or despicable, their character arcs pleasing, the survival of these diluted characters is random. And since our best scientific minds are either baffled or fanatical, it’s hard for us to care for these bumbling, confused people. It rather lands us on the side of vengeful Nature.

Predictable plot twists make it tedious and clues to the mystery are overladen. It’s only slightly interesting that Shyamalan takes the basic genre of civilisation/humanity threatened and reverses the usual adaptive method of safety in numbers. Smaller groups seem to survive where large ones don’t, until even that theory is disproved. An obvious ending doesn’t help. What’s happening, Mr Shyamalan?

© Avril Carruthers 11^th June 2008

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