I swore after Lady in the Water that I would never see another M. Night Shyamalan movie in the theater. At that point, he had burned me pretty severely twice, so I had already experienced the age old "fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me" and was not prepared to look like a sucker yet again. But then a strange thing happened. As the release date of his latest, The Happening, got closer, my interest in it grew. In the back of my mind, I kept reminding myself that I was not going to let Shyamalan swindle me out of more hard earned money, but I'll be damned if the movie didn't look intriguing. So, I had a big dilemma. I solved it briefly by watching a four minute clip online that Shyamalan introduced in his typical, self masturbatory fashion. True, it was nothing special, but it was during the intro that I found out the picture was going to be "R" rated and only 90 minutes long. For some reason, The Happening was starting to sound better and better. I knew very little in regards to what it was actually about, and I didn't care. All I knew is that maybe, just maybe, Shyamalan finally had his head screwed back on straight. God, I was hoping, since I still had to remind myself that the same man who made the tepid Lady in the Water also made the sublime Unbreakable.
If The Happening does deliver on two promises, it's that the movie is "R" rated and only 90 minutes long. Other than that, it's rather indescribable. Many are likely to walk out of it and feel cheated once again, which is how I was expecting to feel, and yet for some strange reason I didn't. Not completely at least. Oh, don't get me wrong. The picture is complete and utter bullshit, but at least it's fascinating bullshit. The Happening is Shyamalan unhinged, a movie made by a man so desperate to please an audience he will quite literally try anything. If you dare to see this movie, you'll immediately understand what I mean.
I was somewhat stunned by it. In the past, Shyamalan has at the very least proved himself to be a skilled technical filmmaker, and in the beginning he showed a knack for writing well thought characters. Both of those elements are strangely absent here. First off, the direction looks really sloppy, as if the shot list was made five minutes before shooting started. There are way too many close ups and sadly, none of them achieve any kind of dramatic effect. And the dialogue is, for the most part, atrocious. Shyamalan does manage to pull off a hand full of entertaining one liners, but overall, this is direct-to-video type writing. How fast did he churn the script out?
Look at The Sixth Sense, Unbreakable, and Signs and there's a sense that this director knows how to work with actors. From watching The Happening, you'd think he's scared of being around people. Every performance in this movie is hugely overstated, making the viewer constantly wonder what the actor's motivation was when attempting to get in character. To be fair, the material they're working with is utterly ridiculous, so chances are they had no idea what the hell they were supposed to me doing. Mark Wahlberg is definitely hit and miss, but he's never looked as awkward and confused as he does here. Ditto the almost always charming Zooey Deschanel. The only actors to get good mileage are the ones playing characters who seem to be from another planet.
I don't want to give away what The Happening is actually about, because in its own little way, that is the movie's sole pleasure. The problem, though, is that the plot is played straight. There's a B grade picture in the same spirit as The Fog just waiting to burst out of the stomach of this thing, but instead of taking that route, Shyamalan asks us to accept the movie at face value. It's odd too, given that half the movie is so somber and the other half is so truly bizarre it's borderline camp. I kept waiting for it to finally throw caution to the wind and let the audience know it was in on the joke, but it never did.
What I'm left with in the end is a movie experience I can't shake off. There's no doubt it's pretty awful, but I don't feel right labeling it that way. I have to give Shyamalan props for making a movie this loony and asking me to find the plausibility in it. For the first time in his career, the once promising filmmaker has gone for broke by making a movie that basically gives the human race the finger, and does so with scenes of violence that go from mildly effective to unintentionally hilarious (nothing beats the lawn mower). I laughed out loud a lot, and I certain that was not his intention. After the climax, I wondered if maybe the whole thing was a big joke. The final two scenes proved I was wrong.
I now find myself having to decide where I stand with M. Night Shyamalan. Yeah, I kind of felt fooled once again, but I also am morbidly interested to see what he may do next. The Happening proves he has passed the point of no return and has become a filmmaker who plays by his own rules. I have to admire that; The Happening might be a failure, but it's a more memorable failure than most. And it's not boring. So many movies that come out these days consist of the same old predictable shit, so it's somewhat refreshing to watch a movie that constantly has you guessing. Damn you, Shyamalan. I said I was through with you, and then you had to go and make a movie so inexplicably bad it's made me anticipate your future projects. There's an endorsement I never expected to give.
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Copyright, Hell and Beyond, 2008
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