Great Ideas Don't Always Make Great Films...

Rating: 3/10 (25 June 2008)

The Happening tells the tale of a phenomenon sweeping the country, in which people are killing themselves for no reason at all. At first people believe it to be a terrorist attack and they flee to the country side in hopes for safety. Unfortunately it's not terrorists, but something worse, something that cannot be explained, or escaped.
Every time M. Night comes out with a new film, I get a little interested. Not full blown, I don't go opening night waiting to see a masterpiece, but I do respect the guy because he knows what he's doing. I think he's had the unfortunate task of being pegged as 'one of those film makers'. If you go see a Kevin Smith movie, you know you're in for dick and fart jokes, you go see a Tarantino film, you know you're getting into something violent. With M. Night, everyone expects a twist. When the film doesn't end with one, people groan, and if it does, it doesn't match his previous effort. It seems he can't get a break. Well, The Happening isn't going to help his case either.
First problem is the script. While the idea is great and could potentially work, it has to many problems that throw the main interest aside. First, the characters, which coincidentally ties in with the acting. Mark Wahlberg I have no problems with usually. He always seems to have a soft spoken voice in every role, sometimes it works (Boogie Nights) sometimes it doesn't (The Big Hit). Here it goes totally wrong. He just doesn't come off as believable. Not once did he ever seem like he was really scared, not once did I ever take him for a teacher, and not once did I ever believe he was with Deschanel. These two characters never really engage the audience into their lives, I found myself not caring if they made it out alive or not. The random subplot with the guy calling her on the phone never flourishes into anything for the two, never causes and real drama or problems and ends up being a distraction and waste of time. The most interesting character in the film cuts his own wrists early in the movie.
Second, the script never offers us any real scares. This ties in with the way M. Night directed this feature. Most of his films deal with tension, he builds it up and takes the audience on a ride. Here he misses the mark completely. The most 'tense' moment is laughable, the try to outrun the wind. There is no real threat here. Had this event made people kill others, then we would have some tension on our hands, but the entire premise if that people kill themselves. I think M. Night tried to scare his audience with the fact that they could not see the enemy, this is a failure.
The film was marketed as M. Night's first R rated film. One gets the impression that it could be pretty gruesome. Yet it is held back. A lawnmower scene that should send shivers down peoples spines is ruined by fake CG blood spray. In that same shot a sign is the background that reads 'You Deserve It" and I can't help but get the feeling that M. Night was never trying to scare us in the first place, but teach us a life lesson. Be kind to plants? This shot was too on the nose to be a simple wink in that direction. Maybe this is why the film doesn't work, M. Night isn't trying to scare us at all, well congratulations for suckering an audience into seeing something that turned out to be something completely different. It's the village all over again.
The Happening is an unfortunate mess. M. Night had some decent ideas and great shots (I still love the workers falling off the building shot) but nothing to tie everything together. The film suffers from a lazy script that can't bring the good ideas to the surface and mismatched casting. It's looks like M. Night is even now, 3/6 in terms of his films in quality. It's a shame that those 3 that aren't good are his latest ones. It's hard to tell is he will get out his this hole he has dug himself. If he will continue a career a become an actual film maker worthy of discussion years from now, or one of those one hit wonders who burned all their gas too quickly. If The Happening is a sign of where things are going....then there are dark times ahead.