If I didn’t know any better, I might be tempted to say that The Happening, with its laughable dialogue, clumsy performances and ludicrous plot, is actually a subtly disguised subversive comedy. The problem is, I
don’t know any better. Perhaps M. Night Shyamalan has managed to fool the masses with a clever and crafty spoof of his previous body of work, with such convincing deadpan delivery as to leave even the likes of
Larry David scratching their glossy bald craniums in befuddlement.
I’d initially planned on this being a straightforward, standard review. However, I found that I had far too much that I wanted to say, and far too many aspects that I felt needed to be ridiculed; therefore what follows is more along the lines of a step-by-step deconstruction, rather than a simple review. Whilst there are indeed many spoilers included, this should in no way be considered a deterrent from reading this, as there is
no possible way that the spoilers contained could ‘ruin’ this film for anyone.
Watching it will ruin it for you. Trust me on this one.
We’re first introduced to our hapless hero, Elliot (Mark Wahlberg), a rather prissy, softly-spoken science teacher, in a scene which adheres to that predictable “teachers pretend that they understand hip apathetic teens” formula more commonly witnessed in such films as
Dangerous Minds,
Coach Carter, and so on. Elliot asks a multitude of questions on the sudden decline in bee population numbers, and lavishes praise on a lazy ignoramus who shrugs his shoulders and answers with
“uh, it’s an act of nature which we’ll never fully understand”. “Good answer!” Elliot, a freakin’
science teacher, exclaims.
Good answer indeed! Why, this man’s credentials are top notch! If catastrophic phenomena were ever to befall mankind- say, as some kind of Occurrence, or Sequence of Events, or
-- Happening!!-- I’d certainly want someone with this impossibly high standard of academic integrity on my side.
Lo and behold, such a Happening does indeed, er, happen, as the staff are informed of an alleged ‘terrorist attack’ in New York’s Central Park where, reports claim, a toxin has been released that makes people commit suicide en masse. The school is evacuated as a precaution. Enter John Leguizamo, playing Elliot’s friend and colleague, maths teacher Julian; possibly one of the slimiest, most instantly dislikeable characters to make it to the big screen. In fact, he’s so slimy, smarmy and downright antipathetic, that he could probably run for the Tory party leadership and win. Julian’s only apparent purpose in the entire film seems to be to bombard others with pointless statistics and generally irritate everyone around him.
“Ya know, people are comforted by statistics!” he slurs, and continues to spout numerical non-sequitors throughout.
Along with his wife Alma (Zooey Deschanel), whose facial expressions range from “daydreaming about unicorns” to “daydreaming about daffodils”, Elliot embarks with Julian and his pasty-faced daughter, Jess, on a train journey to get out of the city before yet another ‘attack’ takes place. In a wholly uninteresting turn of events, the overcrowded train can’t quite make it to its final destination and instead, stops off in the middle of nowhere. Thus, the dopey quartet stop off at a busy diner for some lunch.
Suddenly, a random woman turns to Elliot and blurts out
“Ohmygawd! My sister just sent me this- it was taken at a zoo!” and proceeds to show him a video on her mobile phone of some guy wandering into a lion’s cage and being mauled. Happy slapping isn’t enough to keep this lady’s sister satisfied, it seems. After having gawked at this spectacle, like 19th century peasants gathered to observe a public hanging, everyone in the diner flees for their life, getting in their cars and driving off in a blind panic. Julian abruptly decides that he’s going to get a lift to Princeton to check on his wife, leaving Elliot and Alma to look after his daughter (what is this, Portugal?), and, with this parting statement, he buggers off over the horizon. Fortunately, the three remaining amigos are picked up by a scruffy botanist and hippy wife who are on their way home.
At this point, things get even more retarded. The botanist starts prattling on about some pseudo-scientific nonsense, suggesting that plants talk to each other and consciously attack predators with chemicals. He hereby voices his theory that it’s the plants that are releasing this mysterious toxin causing these hilarious mass suicides. Understandably, his theory is met with some skepticism. The group eventually meet up with other various travellers who are trying to figure out if there’s anywhere where the toxin won’t reach them. Inexplicably, they all leave their cars behind and, mimicking Hobbits on their way to Mordor, walk across the fields in search for a safe haven. Because, you know, there’s no plants in the countryside.
This group splits up into two smaller groups: one with Elliot and Alma. The other with the botanist and a jumpy, nervous wreck who also happens to be a US soldier. What follows is a scene which reaches new heights in the levels of asininity. It goes something like this:
There is tension! Elliot’s group hear gunshots!
Oh noes! The other group are blowing their collective brains out! Tension! Elliot’s group are panicking and start shrieking
“Whatever shall we do?!” in despair. More tension is added, with close-ups of evil, evil trees, swaying in the breeze in a sinister manner, with equally sinister, ominous music playing in the background! Everyone is turning to Mark Wahlberg for help! We are treated to an extreme,
extreme close-up of Mark Wahlberg as, with nostrils a-flaring, he pulls some of the goofiest faces known to man!
“Uh, give me a moment to think.” He says. BANG! BANG! More shrieking.
“Uh, just gimme five minutes so I can think of something!” BANG! Wahlberg pulls another silly face. BANG! Panicked shrieking intensifies. BANG!
“Please, I just need a moment to… to think!” BANG! BANG! BANG!
And so on, for a good 3 or 4 minutes, until Elliot finally concludes: Yeah, it’s probably the plants. His plan? To outrun the wind so the toxins can’t get to them. No, really. That’s his plan.
“Here it comes!!” he yells, and off they go, trying to outrun the wind with all their might. The wind.
The goddamn wind.
Some filler material follows this, involving two fat kids getting shot by a stereotypical redneck who you hear but don't see. They deserve it though, so it’s okay.
Elliot, Alma and Jess then come across a house, inhabited by a crazy old hermit woman. She welcomes them in, but tops herself shortly after by smashing her head through all the windows in the house. Alma and Jess end up in a separate room from Elliot, but supposedly have to stay in because of the risk, or some crap. They talk to each other through a speaking tube in the house, and Elliot starts to get weepy because he doesn’t want to die alone.
Never fear! Elliot decides to brave the wind to be with his wife! And he doesn’t die because the toxins just so happen to stop at the exact moment when he steps out of the house. Hurrah.
Fast forward a few months later, where Elliot and Alma are living a happy life, with Jess as their adopted daughter. The TV is switched on to a topical news debate, where the anchor is claiming that the toxin was caused by pollution. Some pseudo-scientist gets mad and says that it was the plants getting revenge, although no-one knows in what way because it’s
“an act of nature which we’ll never fully understand”. The news anchor bafflingly replies with:
“Maybe if this happened somewhere else, we could all believe that it was the plants!”
To conclude, the shocking non-twist: people in France start killing themselves. Supposedly, due to that news anchor’s reply, we’re meant to take it as a sign that it’s the plants doing it after all. Don’t ask me how.
This is quite possibly the first occasion on which I can claim that a blind monkey randomly mashing the keys on a typewriter for 10 years straight could come up with a better script, and not be exaggerating in the slightest. I don’t what kind of crazy logic you’d need to adhere to if you even wanted to try and make sense of this film.
Putting aside the sheer stupidity of the story for a minute, there’s something else that’s been bugging me about this movie. It's the niggling sense that the movie that M. Night Shyamalan believes he has made, is not the same as the one that he has
actually made.
Let me elaborate.On the face of it, this film purports to be about plants seeking their revenge and killing people. Yet, there’s
not a single thing in the entire movie that would back this up.
Not one. The very idea that plants are responsible is only postulated halfway through, on a botanist’s whim. Then the whim is taken on faith by a scientist who clearly knows
nothing whatsoever about science, and finally, someone whom the newscaster refuses to take seriously mentions it on television. Close-ups of trees and hedge-clippings aside, this is all we’re given. There’s no proof that plants are in any way involved. It is merely
assumed, and the viewer is expected to accept it as if it were something blatantly obvious.
This is
not a movie about plants killing people. It’s a movie about people running around like idiots, having convinced themselves that plants are killing people.
On a slightly deeper level, one might come to The Happening’s defence by claiming that it’s trying to get a pro-environment message across. If so, what could this message possibly be? That my back garden gets angry at me every time it gets mowed? That hell hath no fury like a dandelion scorned? Why, pray tell, should I save a tree that hates me?
So, no, I don’t consider it to be worth taking seriously as a pro-environment movie. Though, while the message might not be evidently pro-environment, it most definitely is
anti-intellectual.
Films that deal with paranormal subjects are always going to have inconsistencies and omission with regards to scientific fact, and its perfectly acceptable to suspend your disbelief to enjoy the feature. The Happening is different because it treats the subject with utter disdain, whilst irritatingly putting up a façade pretending otherwise. One of the first things the main character says, in addition to implying that science should not question ‘acts of nature’ (a thinly veiled way of saying ‘acts of God’, essentially), is:
“Scientists have to accept that there are powers at work beyond their control”. It’s precisely the kind of statement that is made when some disgruntled individual wishes to deride a scientific finding in favour of their own personal belief- the
“scientists used to believe lots of things that weren’t true” argument for dismissing any finding that contradicts your wishful thinking. The 'scientific' claims made by the botanist are entirely religious in tone; a load of claptrap about everything being connected in nature and whatnot. Skeptic reactions to the claim are portrayed as plain wrong and small-minded.
The formula displayed here is quite straightforward. Start off with a person, or group of people with a skeptical outlook (people claiming the toxins are due to a terrorist attack), have same person or people make a grand leap of faith for no real, good reason (it must be the plants!), leap of faith leads to slightly better result (people who believed in the plant theory live happily ever after, skeptics all get proved wrong when the French die, ha-ha-ha).
The real kicker is that, when you look back at Shyamalan’s other films, and apply the above formula--
skeptical person at the beginning>irrational leap of faith made>leap of faith proves to be better than skepticism-- you’ll find that it runs through all his work.
The Sixth Sense: Bruce Willis plays an intellectual child therapist. He doesn’t believe Haley Joel Osment sees dead people!
(Skeptical stance) But then he thinks he hears a voice on an old tape, and he believes that Haley Joel Osment talks to ghosts!
(Sudden leap of faith) This allows him to solve both the boy’s problems and come to terms with his own.
(Leap of faith is better) Add twist, and serve.
Unbreakable: Bruce Willis plays a self-doubting security guard. Despite Samuel L Jackson’s claims, he doesn’t believe that he can never get hurt!
(Skeptical stance) But then he lifts a load of weights, and believes that he is invincible!
(Sudden leap of faith) This allows him to save some people’s lives.
(Leap of faith is better) Add twist, and serve.
Signs: Mel Gibson plays an ex-priest who has lost his wife. He does not believe in God anymore!
(Skeptical stance) But then, aliens invade and he believes that everything was elaborately set up for a purpose!
(Sudden leap of faith) This allows him to become a priest again.
(Leap of faith is better). Add twist, and serve.
The Village/Lady in The Water: I have not seen them! I do not wish to!
(Skeptical stance) I’ll just assume that they’re exactly the same!
(Sudden leap of faith) This means I do not have to watch them, ever!
(Leap of faith is better) No twist required.
To summarise my point, those who criticise this by saying that it’s a far cry from Shyamalan’s allegedly better movies, such as the Sixth Sense, have got it the wrong way around. It’s not
far enough. To all intents and purposes, The Happening isn’t the exception to the rule where Shyamalan films are concerned, but it is, in actual fact, the very
epitome of his cinematic works, with its massively flawed inner workings laid bare for all to witness.
But, I digress. I thought this movie worked on many levels: as a filmgoer, it left me cold, perplexed, and dispirited. As an immature, cynical bastard, it instilled me with insurmountable glee, proving to be an ideal target for some much deserved derision. On top of that, on a very intimate, human level, it managed to insult my intelligence to an excruciating degree. Intelligences that I didn’t even know I
had, until they were beaten to a disfigured pulp, raped vigorously, and left to rot whilst choking on a pungent pool of vomit by this poorly thought-out celluloid thug!
What more could you ask for?
The Happening is out now, and is soon to be released in the Camp Delta wing of Guantanamo, where it will make an efficient alternative torture method to controversial waterboarding techniques.
