Director: M. Night Shyamalan (The Sixth Sense, Unbreakable, The Village, Lady in the Water)
Writer: M. Night Shyamalan
Producers: M. Night Shyamalan, Barry Mendel, Sam Mercer
Starring: Mark Wahlberg, Zooey Deschanel, John Leguizamo, Ashlyn Sanchez
MPAA Rating: R
Running time: 91 min
Another debate filled, joint review from a few of the contributors here at RowThree.
Synopsis: A mysterious breeze of air brings about mass suicides to an unexpecting east coast. We follow one small group of people as they go on the run; desperately trying to survive, while simultaneously attempting to solve the mystery as to why this could be happening.
read all of our reviews below…
Marina:
The first thing that came to mind walking out of M. Night Shyamalan’s new film was The Mist and not necessarily in subject matter but in tone. From the opening scenes of The Happening there’s a sense that all of the performances are hammed up to the max and as the film progresses into the the “whats” and “whys”, this becomes much more obvious. Mark Wahlberg and Zooey Deschanel continually push the boundaries into camp and with this particular story, it works. The film walks the fine line of comedy and horror and it does so successfully. At some moments it’s deliberately funny while being as graphic as any horror film we’ve seen of late.
What impresses me most about the film is the level of pushing going on. Obviously a mainstream summer blockbuster, Shyamalan infuses the film with a-typical mainstream Hollywood fare. The simple title sequence which features nothing but clouds, the over-the-top 70′s sci-fi premise, the over dramatic score and the aforementioned hammy acting all work together to create a modern, as he himself called it, b-movie and where as The Mist did a better job of it, Shyamalan’s attempt is nothing to scoff at.
But it’s not low budget fun and games. The film looks beautiful captured through the lens of Tak Fujimoto who Shyamalan hasn’t worked with since Signs, not to mention that Shyamalan still manages to create a great sense of dread from the very beginning. It’s easy to see how, if not on board from the get-go, an audience would walk away wondering about the mess they’d just seen but I walked out ready to see it a second time.
I wasn’t a fan of Lady in the Water and I didn’t know if Shyamalan could ever recuperate from that disaster but I’m happy to see that he’s not only bounced back but that he’s done so with the added bonus of entertaining camp which was missing from his earlier works. I’m ready for more.
Kurt:
M. Night Shyamalan is certainly a product of the multiplex age. All of his films aim for a wide audience, although unlike many an anonymous blockbuster director, his films are both instantly recognizable and aim to stretch audiences whilst simultaneously entertaining them. His success in this department is spotty; often his films are little more than the sum of their extraordinarily crafted parts. He has somewhat of a handicap in the screenwriting department (notice his earlier films The 6th Sense, Unbreakable and Signs were more widely successful due to a languid, brooding pace which minimized the dialogue usually aiming for silences to do the heavy lifting). But while he may come back to similar themes (redemption, solving human problems in extraordinary circumstances) Shyamalan nevertheless retains a desire to experiment with individual elements of the form. The unusual exposition techniques employed in Lady in the Water may have baffled audiences into writing off that film (well that and this own hagiographic hubris); with The Happening he has taken these experiments further.
The principle characters are mainly in the dark as to what is actually going on, yet there are many cutaways to television news bits and incidental cellular phone conversations from background players. Many of these experiments fail, in a modern film it seems a bit silly for someone in a panic to put their phone on speaker (for the audience’s information). I would love to see M. Night and David Mamet argue over how to pass information along to an audience because they take decidedly opposite approaches. In the exposition department, The Happening is definitely not Spartan. Furthermore, a wholly unnecessary (and perhaps unintentionally) hilarious iPhone scene involving a lion tamer which looks like it is from either Peter Jackson’s Dead Alive, or Paul Verhoeven’s Starship Troopers undercuts horrific tension because it is just too darn goofy. A certain type of film-lover may like that scene, but really, why chop your film off at the knees for something so acutely unnecessary?
These over the top gore moments are combined with (intentionally?) oddball performances from the three leads. In perhaps the worst performance of his career Mark Wahlberg lays it on really thick as the much-suffering wounded puppy with maximum pout towards a wet-blanket Zooey Deschanel. But the cheese-cake award goes to a way-over-the-top Betty Buckley serving as a stand-in for Tim Robbins character in Steven Spielberg’s War of the Worlds or Marcia Gay Harden in The Mist. In fact it seems like Shyamalan wants to play in the same sandbox as Spielberg or Darabont as modern takes on 1950′s B-Sci-fi flicks go. Yet The Happening has neither the delicious subtext of former or the full-on embrace of the style in the latter. Full disclosure, Wahlberg’s nutty performance by the end of the film had won me over.
Despite a laundry lists of flaws, The Happening succeeds as an edge-of-your-seat apocalypse flick even if you can’t take too much of it seriously. Even with this type of scenario tackled so often in the past 5 years or so, the unpredictable nuttiness from scene-to-scene makes (will it be serious, will it be funny, will the characters attempt to outrun the wind?) it a more engrossing than most. I’m tempted to label it a winner in a lackluster year for blockbusters.
John:
I can not think of another movie that had me smiling so often when everything was as bad as this. The performances are terrible but I believe they are meant to be. The movie switches from dramatic, to scary, and to comedic not just often but also at random. And finally it had one of the most anti-climactic endings I have ever seen. Somehow though it all works. I want to just rip this movie apart and completely forget about it but I know that when I sit down in a few months with the DVD I will get a big kick out of it. I am really having a hard time why I enjoyed the movie as much as I did other than to guess that it is just the “camp” factor. Much like Southland Tales (Our Review, Extended Thoughts) I have the feeling that this is going to become a cult favourite that we will all get together and have a good laugh over Shyamalan’s creation of a campy, genre bending, so bad that its good movie.
Andrew:
Usually, I can walk out of a theater and instantly know how to rate the film I have just seen on a five star scale. With The Happening, it took me about 36 hours of digestion before ultimately deciding that I like the film overall. Not loving it, but unlike the disaster that was Lady in the Water, I can definitely get the feel of what Shyamalan is at least attempting here.
The Happening‘s chief strength is it’s oddball mystery (or more aptly, “wtf is going on here?”) and it’s unique style and tone. Lots of great shots and creepy moments abound and it’s quite the thrill to feel the hairs on the back of your neck stand up during several of these moments. Unfortunately, the film is littered with unintentionally amusing moments that have the audience cackling along with some of the flattest, most embarrassing acting I’ve seen in a multi-plex in quite some time.
Reflecting back, it’s obvious that what Shyamalan was going for here is a throw-back to the B-movies of the 1950s. In that regard he’s almost succeeded. The acting and some of the techniques (a slow motion, “NOOOOOOO!” shot, etc) utilized, work really well in that vein; but trying to have both a cheesy B-movie and a serious, sci-fi thriller at the same time is difficult to do and I think the film fails on that level.
I did really enjoy the overall premise and what the film is trying to say. He gives us the message without holding the audience’ hand and several theories and ideas went through my head at the conclusion of the movie. Unfortunately there’s just too much unintentional comedy and scenes that don’t work to make this a really great story. At least the rules of The Happening are set and never stray – unlike the extraordinarily crappy Lady in the Water; of which a lot of parallels can be drawn from within The Happening.
Consensus: Per UN-usual, it looks like we’re all on the same page here. Campy, hammy and cheesy are adequate adjectives, but something about the film just seems to work and can be enjoyed for what it is.
Average score:
What did YOU think of The Happening?
Watch the trailer:
Relevant Links:
IMDb profile
Official Site
Flixster Profile for The Happening
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its funny the general consensus of a lot of us is we like this film against our better judgments. Its a bit of a mess, but its an enjoyable mess.
The problem, as noted, is that it straddles the goofy and the serious and does not do a good job balancing the two… I would have preferred one or the other… maybe more to the goofy end. There could have been some interesting set-pieces man vs. nature… more outlandish then that which was offered.
And for my liking, I thought it was the right mix of goofy and seriousness though I agree that a little goofier would have been even more fun.
Hey, at least there were no flipping aliens or ‘secret military super-flu’ although he probably could have gotten away with those as well. The fact that there is an obvious desire to have a ‘ironic’/'detached’ safety net with this unusual style, means that Shyamalan was looking for a soft cushion in case he completely fell with this one.
I should hold him on trial, but every time Mark Wahlberg spoke, I was chuckling with honest joy. And then when the crazy-lady showed up. Bliss. Bonus points with Dante Hicks driving the Jeep and ‘out-running’ the wind.
My wife would never watch this movie however due to the *****SPOILER*****violent kid killing going on.
Wow, I really didn’t think Row Three would be as positive about this film. I gave it a 2/5, I thought it failed at what it attempted to be. It was badly written, badly acted (Wahlberg is the worst he’s been in ages) and it was VERY underwhelming.
I make this analogy: it’s like one of those exaggerated bombs with the lit fuse from an old cartoon – the film is like the part ohere the fuse has been little and it’s fizzing along and we’re all waiting on the seemingly inevitable explosion. But when it gets a milimetre from exploding the fuse stops and the credits roll.
@Andrew “He gives us the message without holding the audience’ hand”
Really? There was so much tangential exposition in the film, that he held my hand until he twisted it out of my arm-socket. Oh that Lion Tamer Shyamalan!
@ross “the film is like the part ohere the fuse has been little and it’s fizzing along and we’re all waiting on the seemingly inevitable explosion. But when it gets a milimetre from exploding the fuse stops and the credits roll.”
Yea Ross, but we’ve seen the bloody bomb go off in a thousand different disaster blockbusters. I’ll prefer M. Night’s wacky experiments over some of the so-straight-forward-banality of many of the usual CGI fests. In fact, the premise here allowed for a minimal use of CGI which was rather refreshing here.
That being said, I’m still at odds with LADY IN THE WATER, mainly because it seems to be M. Night making love to himself for much of the run-time.
More lions, thats what the film needed!
Hey Ross, I can 100% understand not liking this film, I do not support it for anything integral to the film, I enjoy it for the mess it is, intentional or not.
@ Kurt,
Well with what I took from the film, the exposition wasn’t there at all. But I think what I took away from the movie is a different message than everyone else. We’ll talk soon.
**Very Mild Spoilers**
The TV and News stuff reminded me a bit of a distilled down “Would you Like To Know More?” from Starship Troopers (or more pure, the “You Gives us Three minutes and We’ll give you the World” segments from Robocop.
The ‘debates’ on the news stations. The crazy ‘little girl’ on a cell phone bit. The iPhone was definitely wacky SST territory….popping limbs!
@ “The unusual exposition techniques employed in Lady in the Water may have baffled audiences into writing off that film”
So, am I to understand you’re doing a 180 on Lady In The Water?
I understand that some bad films inspire introspection but these reviews are absurd.
@ “The performances are terrible but I believe they are meant to be”
brilliant. I forget, is there an acadamy award for “worst performance”?
@ “a wholly unnecessary (and perhaps unintentionally) hilarious iPhone”
Seriously, we’re actually going to argue that Shaymalam was aiming for hillariously terrible with that scene?
I don’t hate the film or anything and there are some really effective bits inserted randomly into the abyss of lameness. But over all it’s a tepid and bizarre failure. Just call the spade a spade, calling this film an “experiment” is just a ridiculous euphemism which avoids actual criticism.
Also, as far as technical proficiency this is a career low for the formerly talented Shayamalan. He’s never felt so clumsy and cliched before.
I watched Red Belt last night. Loved it, I need to see it again to process the ending. In any case it’s clearly my favorite Dave Mamet directing effort. Shyamalan should take a lesson on exposition from Mamet, he makes it look effortless.
If you want goofier Shyamalan, check out the movie LADY IN THE WATER from 2006. All of you idiots who didn’t like that movie because it didn’t make sense, I hold you responsible for having to have the clichéd parts of the story in The Happening.
You people need to figure out what you want.
The iPhone scene was great over-the-top violence, no holds barred. If The Happening was meant to be taken seriously as a warning to humanity, Mark Wahlbergs character would have been different.
And because this seems like the most appropriate place (it just took too long to get up !), I will repost my review of The Happening. Feel free to skip if you already read:
After two amazing but generally misunderstood films M Night Shyamalan returns with The Happening. A title which has to be a candidate for the vaguest ever. As usual it has been nearly impossible to figure out what in the world the film is about beforehand, and that is just one of the reasons that Shyamalan with The Happening, again delivers a cinema experience like no other.
The Happening has a (for Shyamalan) brand new cast starring Mark Wahlberg, Zooey Deschanel and John Leguizamo, and (I’m sure to many peoples delight) no appearance by Shyamalan himself. Mark Wahlbergs performance in The Happening is incredibly difficult to get a hold of. His diction is among the strangest I can remember hearing a grown man speak, it is almost like when a finnish man questioningly tries his luck in English, and it can get annoying at times, but you can’t help but wonder why somebody would speak like that. It does make him alittle more interesting I think.
Zooey Deschanel in front of a camera is close to being the best idea since somebody came up with wrapping a sausage in bacon. She has a fantastic face, it can sometimes be distracting to the plot to have her in a close-up, and even though her acting gets alittle too cute at times, she carries it. She’s a coming star, who we’ll hopefully get to see a lot more of.
In his latest films Shyamalan has more or less attempted consciously to alienate the audience, and created plot threads, characters and entire universes so peculiar, special and seemingly disjointed that most people check out at the halfway point. The Happening is not as extreme as his latest two films, but it does contain elements which can be hard to swallow for a sceptic audience. But that is their loss. The only difference between The Happening and countless other Hollywood-movies with far out concepts, is that Shyamalan does not attempt to apologize for his ideas, and doesn’t try to shape an entire reality based around getting one little concept to work.
But The Happening is in no way inaccesible. This is Shyamalan in entertainmentmode, and he serves delicious set pieces with a flair and an elegance worthy of Steven Spielberg. The enormous difference is that Shyamalan in The Happening is cold, cynical, vicious and unforgiving. There is no dear mom in Shyamalans universe, there is no salvation, and that is wonderful! For once it actually hurts to watch an entertainmentfilm from Hollywood, and there are still some of us who appreciate that.
One of the most amazing things about Shyamalan is that he like no other living director can create uneasyness on the screen. His mood-driven tension is like a dial he can turn up or down anytime he wants. Horrorfilms usually don’t affect me, I’m not scared, they fall on their face. Shyamalan, with very simple methods, brings me completely into the mood – it’s pretty fucking scary man.
The Happening is an entertainmentfilm with an auteurflair that’s lacking in Hollywood. Even though Shyamalan in a way has gone back to the well to regain goodwill both among audiences and in the industry, he hasn’t forgotten himself. When you add to that craftsmanship on the level of a Stanley Kubrick, you’ve got a cinema experience which nobody should cheat themselves out of. The Happening is possibly this summers best American film!
@ Rusty “Seriously, we’re actually going to argue that Shaymalam was aiming for hilariously terrible with that scene?
If he intended it, its a failure, I think he wanted it to be as scary and intimidating as the earlier suicides or for instance, a much better version involving a kids birthday party video in SIGNS. I think he failed, but it just falls in with the howling ludicrousness of the film.\
@ Rusty “Just call the spade a spade, calling this film an “experiment” is just a ridiculous euphemism which avoids actual criticism”
Not completely, the film provided some very, very solid entertainment, and I happen to dig on wacky B-film stuff. The Happening hit my happy button more times than not. (And like Southland Tales, I tend to give the benefit kooky experiments…)
@ Rusty: “Shyamalan should take a lesson on exposition from Mamet, he makes it look effortless.”
In our little Auteur Versus category around here, I’d love to see Shyamalan vs. Mamet!
@ “I happen to dig on wacky B-film stuff.”
I do too. Which is why I find these reviews to be so off the wall.
Shayamalan has regressed as a filmmaker and tonally this film is a disaster area. I keep hearing this film compared to the The Mist and WotW But when Speilberg makes a movie I don’t hear people arguing about which scenes are a joke and which are suspensful. It seems to me that if your audience can’t tell the difference then you fucked up.
And it seems to me the “b movie” defense (I think they used that one at the R.Kelly trial) is completely at odds with the lofty excuses you guys are cooking up.
“It’s a fun b-movie! and also a complex tonal riddle that has to be decoded.”
I guess if you enjoyed it then you enjoyed it. There’s no debating that but it’s a little infuriating to hear everyone bend over backwards for this sloppy, poorly constructed psuedo-thriller that may or not also be a wacky comedy.
Oh, Shyamalan. His movies are like going on a blind date with one of your friend’s friends. At first you hear how great it could be and it could be a lot of fun and you’d probably really get along. And then you get there and see it and want to shoot yourself in the face by the end of it.
@ “In our little Auteur Versus category around here, I’d love to see Shyamalan vs. Mamet!”
I’d be more interested in Shyamalan VS Von Trier. They’re both devisive and infuriating. I also think that Von Trier’s films are usually misinterpreted because he cloaks his films in a veil of esotericism.
It would actually be pretty difficult for me to explain why I love Von Trier but don’t like Shayamalan (although I used to) without sounding like I’m contradicting myself.
I’ll never defend this as a good movie but I’ll defend it as a fun movie that had me smiling the entire time. The entire movie feels like one big mistake after another for me but yes I still dug it. And, yes I know I’m a hypocrite for giving a bad movie as good rating of rating as I did but oh well not much I can do other than to accept the title of Hypocrite on this. I can also understand how The Movie Blog can defend The Transformers a bit more when I compare it to a movie like this.
@kurt “I would love to see M. Night and David Mamet argue over how to pass information along to an audience ”
Oh wow. I must’ve just skimmed your review earlier because I didn’t notice you’d already made that exact same comparison about exposition.
Weird.
Heh, and here I thought you were referencing my brilliance!
Instead you were skimming along my thoughts as a passing distraction.
At least we came to the same insight.
a 2/5 from me.
This was a pretty bad movie, but yes, it was very watchable for whatever thats worth. Its not un-entertaining. It has its moments where it is legitimately good, and a lot where it is legitimately bad. Aside from being ridiculous as a whole, Wahlberg is the truely bad element here and a different casting alone would have improved it immensely. Elliot is a humongous wimp, his ‘noooo’ scene is razzie worthy as is almost every time he’s talking at closeup. When a camera is in his face, he turns into a severely out of place, unintentionally hilarious goof that makes the recent SNL ‘talking to animals’ skit seem so much funnier.
(and this is from a Shyamalan apologist)
This is an IM conversation I had with Andrew James…
——————–
me: I watched The Happening per your request.
Andrew: and?
me: biggest waste of time this year as bad as Lady In the Water
Andrew: lol. you’re not alone. It has its moments though and I like to hypothesize a little bit on what “happened”
me: what are you talking about
the best moment was when Walhberg found himself talking to a tree.
Sent at 11:21 AM on Friday
Andrew: I like the idea of nature striking back (in a more “reaslistic” way – as opposed to vines literally attacking people).
I like how they were “savd” or kept safe by love.
I like the sort of Body Snatchers ending.
I really like some of the death scenes.
The way the one with the gun on the street was shot is awesome.
me: you’re loosing credibility as you type
Andrew: The bodies falling from the buildin is awesome.
me: yeah that totally made the movie
Sent at 11:23 AM on Friday
Andrew: http://www.rowthree.com/2008/06/16/r3-review-the-happening/
First comment sums it up exactly.
Sent at 11:25 AM on Friday
Andrew: Or even better:
http://www.rowthree.com/2008/06/17/cinecast-episode-90-maybe-youll-want-your-hearing/
me: no thanks
After reading your review and Marina’s I don’t need to go any further.
Once again I feel as if you have no clue what you’re talking about
Camp?
Even if was suppose to be “campy,” whaich I agree with, it fell short.
Not even close.
So I don’t give Shyamalan points for “trying.”
It fucking sucked.
Andrew: Fair enough. My review is actually pretty negative if actually read.
me: 3 1/2 stars sums it up.
Andrew: But there was enough there to make me enjoy it. Sometimes disasters are fun to watch.
Again, first comment sums it up exactly.
me: more like 1 1/2 stars. 1 for Zooey and 1/2 for originality.
you mean this… “I can definitely get the feel of what Shyamalan is at least attempting here.”
Please.
Andrew: Zooey sucked too. But I think she/they were going for 50′s, B-movie, pre-method acting style.
me: no need to pity someone who hasn’t done anything great since his first film…
But they didn’t pull it off.
Andrew: Some of it they do.
It’s not worth defending for me.
me: why would that change things.
Andrew: Shymalan has his tongue so far up his own ass it’s ridiculous.
me: so why would you give it 3.5 stars? That seems like a film rating worth defending.
Sent at 11:36 AM on Friday
Andrew: It means I liked a lot of aspects of the movie, I enjoyed myself, I would watch it again one day, but it’s not great film making.
Also…
This is the kind of movie a person is not going to change their mind on. I can only point out so much before giving up.
And to be honest there has been more Shyamalan talk on R3 than any other subject. Some of it is actually fuckin hilarious… but I’ve grown weary of it.
Sent at 11:38 AM on Friday
me: Well, you may want to defend your opinion a bit more. “I enjoyed it” doesn’t really fly. Especially for the one person I go to for their opinions about movies.
Sent at 11:41 AM on Friday
Andrew: I like the idea of nature striking back (in a more “reaslistic” way – as opposed to vines literally attacking people).
I like how they were “savd” or kept safe by love.
I like the sort of Body Snatchers ending.
I really like some of the death scenes.
The way the one with the gun on the street was shot is awesome.
Sent at 11:43 AM on Friday
Andrew: Not to mention there are pages of “defending” that I’ve steered you to. I can either cut and paste or re-type all the same stuff.
The spoiler edition of that cinecast goes pretty deep into The Happening.
me: i’m posting this…
Sent at 11:47 AM on Friday
Andrew: Unfortunately you can’t easily do a specific search at R3, if you could read what I’m reading right now it’s pretty funny. We have one guy that VERY passionately defends everything Shymalan has ever done.
me: he’s an idiot.
Andrew: This one is particularly amusing. We go on for days about the Aliens in “Signs” and the reasoning why they land on a planet filled with water – which is deadly to them.
http://www.rowthree.com/2008/04/09/what-is-earth-vs-moon/
me: Nature striking back story idea = originality, which equates to 1/2 of my stars.
The fact that they were saved by love = stupid, lazy writing.
Body Snatchers-esque ending = cliche
Andrew: “Body Snatchers-esque ending = cliche”
Really?
me: Death scenes = almost laughable
Andrew: wrong
me: except maybe the bodies falling in the beginning.
me: except maybe the bodies falling in the beginning.
Andrew: the gun in the street is great. You don’t even see the deaths, just hear them. Love it.
much creepier that way
me: creepy?
Andrew: definitely
me: come on. what i don’t get is why nobody can see that this film might have been decent had it not been directed by the Axl Rose of Hollywood.
Even that scene could have been better..
Sent at 11:56 AM on Friday
Andrew: I think the all “happy-go-lucky” ending is all acting (Body Snatchers-esque) to keep nature from killing them (Zooey and daughter).
The death is still happening, but they’ve figure out how to keep it at bay.
Did you watch “Blindness” yet? Ziskin didn’t like it all. It’s one of my top 10 of last year.
Sent at 11:59 AM on Friday
me: Instead it was force fed to the audience. And then he continues to explain it to us over and over again what’s going on, by showing us people dying different ways. We get it M Night. Get to the story. I’m sure the first idea he had for this movie was how cool he thought it would be to show people killing themselves in as many different ways he could think up. Those scenes take up like 30% of the film.
Sent at 12:00 PM on Friday
Andrew: I actually own this film. I’ll need to re-watch it at some point. The real question is, “what is the story?”
IS there a story?
me: yes, kinda.
but a bad one. And it could have been a short story.
Sent at 12:02 PM on Friday
me: I gotta run.
I’m feeling a slight breeze coming my way.
Just in case I don’t live, I wanted you to know that I had desert with this guy Joey the other night.
I’m sorry.
Saw most of this again over the weekend and I stand by everything I say here. Except Wahlberg’s acting is even worse than I remember. The only explanation is that the actors were directed to behave this way. Even though it’s “bad” acting, it’s entertaining as hell. The first comment in this thread sums up the movie exactly.
And I also forgot about the lion’s den scene at the zoo. Shyamalan trying to recreate that AMAZING alien scene at the birthday party from Signs: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=czy4RjcrpFM (which I still think is 45 seconds of some of the best filmmaking of the year).
The lion scene though ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DRvKs37vJzg )? Laughable man.
Wahlberg’s performance in this movie is worthy of a drinking game. I agree: AWESOME and FUN!