The Happening chills audiences
Shymalan back to form with a film much better than you'd expect
Jun 17, 2008
Shymalan has thrown off all the dead people, aliens, forest folk and Samuel L. Jacksons of his other films in favor of contemplating a deeper question: is our planet finally making us pay for our mistakes? He addresses this in the 91 feverish minutes of "The Happening," an introspective thriller where the villain is not something that can be defeated through bombs or guns, but only through quick thinking and scientific deduction.
Sound exciting enough for you? Indeed, "The Happening" is a strange film to release this time of the year, and will probably go down with many movie audiences as "that wierd little movie I saw back in June where the plants were killing people." But it represents a true return to form for Shymalan who, after "Lady in the Water," seemed prepared to take up residence in a rubber room.
With Shymalan, ego does overshadow talent at many junctures, but it is easy to forget his natural skill as a filmmaker, and with "The Happening" he taps back into the same chilling, visceral energy that made "The Sixth Sense," "Unbreakable," and "Signs" so memorable. Against long odds as well, since the pre-release buzz on this film has been everything but positive. Much of it has been justified; when we see a promotional poster that depicts cars scattered on a highway leading out of an ominous-looking city, the viewer asks the obvious question: what End of Days crap is Shymalan selling now?
Indeed, he has become such an ardent proponent of his own cinema shockmaster-status that every marketing campaign behind one of his movies invites a smirk and a pat on the head. But with "The Happening," he crafts a premise that not only grabs your attention, but invites admiration for releasing a movie like this in a summer of big green monsters and Indiana Jones.
The film begins on a sunny morning in Central Park. Two women share a bench as they read their books. One asks the other a strange, confused question. Next she is pulling out her hair pin and jamming it into her throat. Certainly not the first random act of suicide we'll see, as citizens all over the Northeast begin a mass exodus of life. Construction workers hurl themselves off buildings, police officers put their guns to their heads, and the powers-that-be begin to ponder 9/11-type scenarios as the cause. But it ain't the terroritsts. Cue Billy Bob Thornton: "Basically, it's the worst parts of the Bible."
We meet Elliot Moore (Mark Wahlberg), a Philadelphia high school science teacher who flees the city with his wife Alma (Zooey Deschanel), best friend Julian (John Leguizamo), and Julian's daughter Jess (Ashlyn Sanchez). They board a train going to Harrisburg, Pa but are stopped in the middle of nowhere, as the train's crew have lost all outside contact. As the group seaches for means of transport, Julian leaves Jess with Elliot and Alma as he goes in search of his wife. The film then follows these three as they wander through the Pennsylvania wilderness, trying to both avert and decipher this event.
Shymalan gets a lot of mileage (as he did in "Signs") out of only supplying the viewer with as much information as the characters. It creates a nice sense of claustraphobia for the story, as the characters are left totally to their own devices in figuring out this event. They encounter a gardener (Frank Collison) who has a half-baked theory that, since plants have the ability to develop hormones to kill their enemies, man's insults to the environment are being revisited on him, with his punishment carried in the wind.
There are problems with this obviously; why does the wind have to blow in order for these suicidal symptoms to take effect? If its in the air, then why should wind matter? Also, when the symptoms take effect, how does a victim differentiate between methods of suicide? At one point late in the film, a character bangs their head against the side of a house in order to meet her end. Are the victims simply going for the most obvious method? If so, how does a person know to pick up a gun rather than just banging their head against something.
Shymalan doesn't flesh these matters out, and because the film is so well made, it didn't really hinder my enjoyment of it at all. The film is tightly structured, but doesn't feel like it needs an action beat every ten minutes in order to keep the viewer interested; it moves at a thoughtful, deliberate pace that keeps the audience on its toes but allows them meditate on the broader implications of the story.
In disaster films, the heroes can face one of two problems: the type that can be destroyed and the type that can only be outlasted. One reason "The Happening" works is that it understands how much more compelling the second problem is than the first. In this film, the characters aren't military types with guns and ammo, and the villain isn't an alien or ghost or asteroid speeding toward earth. These characters are ordinary people who only hope for a temporary solution to the problem so that they might be able to survive. I admire Shymalan for making this type of movie, and for allowing the audience to ponder a few deeper questions along the way.
