The TV Addict 

Though M. Night Shyamalan’s recent endeavors, most notably THE VILLAGE and THE LADY IN THE WATER, were interesting in their own way, they were still failures. They were never catastrophic ones though because they were conceptual missteps. The ideas propelling the fundamental plot were flawed, but the craft in telling the narrative still demonstrated Shyamalan to be an excellent filmmaker.

THE HAPPENING, unfortunately, is not only a monumental conceptual failure, it’s also one on every level of craft. It is, I’m sad to say, nothing less than an outright bad – even ridiculous – film and most certainly Shyamalan’s worst. As a fan of the man, and general defender of him and his films (see here), I say that with sadness and a heavy, defeated sulk.

The beginning is eerie enough. A certain strange toxin appears to be causing people to kill themselves. Nobody is sure who or what is doing it. “Terrorists” is the immediate explanation but as the suicides become more prevalent, and begin occurring in smaller locations, that seems to be a slimmer possibility. Shyamalan handles the opening in his usual impressive way. His mastery of producing tension manifests itself here in how he manages to create an unsettling feeling in you as you watch the sinister scenes of people killing themselves (further accentuated by Shyamalan’s trademark calm visual style). There are some fantastic sequences here, some of which rank among some of Shyamalan’s most effective.

Sadly, that quality doesn’t last. It starts slowly. First we get the clichéd going-through-the-motion of people trying to flee and that chaos that can ensue. Then, as callous as it sounds given we’re dealing with suicide, the increasing death toll becomes repetitious and loses its impact – despite Shyamalan’s first time giving us R rated material. From there things get worse, and the promising beginning very quickly becomes an unfortunately distant memory. There’s a plot in which little occurs except a lot of wheel spinning. Worst of all, the revelation of what is actually happening is really, really stupid. Laughably so. You’ll be sitting there flabbergasted that Shyamalan even thought of it, let alone made a big budget movie based on the idea. You’ll also find that any tension, or attempts to mine tension from the plot’s conceit, will be deflated like a popped balloon.

It’s not just plot elements that are the problem here. It’s almost everything about the film. The characters and their personal plot lines are severally underwritten, all the more disappointing because I know Shyamalan can write dysfunctional characters/families well. There is some truly awful dialogue in the film, including sloppy exposition and clunky or overwritten exchanges. Scenes are anything but cohesive, leading to a poorly structured story. There’s way too much goofy and lame humor. That’s mostly intentional, but there’s also a whole lot of campy, unintentional humor, including an embarrassing scene of Wahlberg talking to a plant, and a ridiculously raving recluse old woman.

It doesn’t help that Shyamalan seems to have lost his gift with actors, both in terms of casting and directing. As much as I genuinely like Mark Wahlberg, he’s horribly miscast here because he simply does not have the range nor the expressive face for the emotions involved in this role. Shyamalan trying to direct him to express them anyway doesn’t help things. Even the always lovely Zooey Deschanel is hampered by a silly character, and barely emerges with her dignity. If it weren’t for her darn cuteness, and her ability to somehow make any character she’s working with seem genuine, she would be as bad as Wahlberg here.
All of this keeps on snowballing into something worse and worse. By the time you get to the end of the film, you feel you’re sitting in a train that has not only been violently derailed, but is still barreling along with the force of its original momentum, and you’re just anxiously waiting for the moment when it finally stops and you can assess the damage.

At least unlike Bruce Willis’ character in UNBREAKABLE you won’t be the only survivor, though you also won’t be unscathed.

Overall rating: D+