By far, the most underrated movie of 2008

Rating: 7/10 (9 November 2008)

Here's my pick for the most underrated movie of 2008. And man, sometimes you wish you were just like everybody else and didn't have to be in this uncomfortable minority - everybody hates this movie, and everybody hates M. Night Shyamalan. That's too bad. I don't really know why. The Happening is quite great.
The story is brilliantly in your face - all of a sudden, everybody in Central Park, NY, inexplicably commits suicide. Then all over Manhattan this mass event follows - construction workers walks out from shaffolds for no apparent reason. As it turns out, this "toxin" as it is called in the movie, spreads throughout the entire East Coast. Why only the East Coast? We don't get to know, we can only speculate (on the same level as the characters, no less) and this is an example of how the movie takes a quite original standpoint. Mark Wahlberg plays a Philadelphia high school science teacher who has to escape along with his wife (Zooey Deschanel), his co-worker and best friend (John Leguizamo) and this man's daughter (Ashlyn Sanchez) - there is clearly something from the past going on between them that we never get to understand, another example of how the movie refuses to explain itself. As it turns out, the directions are few since dead bodies are found by virtually every exit. Wahlberg's character has to do his best to try to get some sense out of the strange events that happens - he has no answers and he has no good plan on how to survive because he's just a human, but by using scientific logic he can conjure up a theory that may or may not be true, but that at least works in order to keep them alive.
It has been a while since I sat through a film that allowed me to breathe and take in what's going on for myself, with obligatory afterthought and a demand of some constant brain activity. Every scene in the film is thematically a question that has no answer, but inspires speculation. I have a theory as to why this film was received so poorly. M. Night Shyamalan is well known for his seemingly natural talent of creating spooky, supernational darkness. Now, the critics are right - nothing in particular happens in this movie. But this is not an action movie. The dark, Shyamalanesquemoodiness was probably taken to it's extreme in the mediocre The Village (2004) and I find it interesting that he can break free from the spook house - or well, judging by the negative response he can't, but I admire him for trying.
And he doesn't make it all easy on himself either. Had he been interested in gaining back his reputation he could have easily made this into a creepy, apocalyptic doomsday-film where Mother Earth Strikes Back and the very nature itself becomes a threat, forcing everybody to stay indoors. Yeah, he could have made a crowdplaser. But, and I think this is the most important thing about the movie and why people don't like it, This is not a horror movie. It's barely a thriller. It's a science-fiction movie, first and foremost. We are not in this to be scared. We are in this to think. Consider how the movie takes place in broad daylight, how there is no suspenseful bit-by-bit-buildup as in, say, Signs (2002) and notice that there is no hints and mysteries given in stock for a surprise ending. No, the hints and mysteries this time leads us into a question mark - what happens is "an act of nature that we will never fully understand" as Wahlberg puts it in the beginning of the movie, on another subject. I don't know what to say, I like it. I find it intelligent.
True, The Happening is no masterpiece, it is flawed, at times far fetched and silly, and if it's deliberate or not, well, that's not always easy to understand. It surely bites of a little more than it can chew. But I really like it nonetheless, it was the first movie of the year that instantly made me eager to re-watch it, and I love how Shyamalan doesn't go the traditional way with it, leaving all threads open for interpretation. Sure, there's definitely an environmental message in there (duh...) but it's not taken out of the air (so to speak), and furthermore it's a study of human behavior, all characters act realistically and the film in itself even bears a naturalist air to it, and I don't know about you but I sure miss that amongst todays over-explanatory, steroid pumped thrillers.
The Happening is, I would say, Shyamalan's best movie since Signs, it has gotten an unfair amount of nag and way too little praise. Personally, it gave me back my faith in him as a director that can make his own distinct movies without making them just plain repetitious. I suspect Shyamalan himself didn't expect any "comeback" with this movie, I think he has gained is auteur title, and will keep making the films he wants to make, regardless of who will see it or what they will think of it. I, for one, will be looking out for the next one.