In Defense of "The Happening"

Rating: 9/10 (12 July 2008)

There will necessarily be a lot of "spoilers" in this review. First off, I concede that it's a matter of taste whether or not someone likes or does not like a movie that uses plot, dialog, acting styles, and so forth to clothe the ideas behind the film, as MNS typically does.
But, having said that, it doesn't seem fair to the director or to those who sincerely desire to know something substantial about the movie in question to dismiss it out of hand because the things mentioned above are not to one's taste. At the very least, it's not very informative.
I think that a better way to approach "The Happening" is to recognize that, like all MNS's movies, the central theme is the importance of connectedness between people, or between people and nature, if you will. For instance, in "The Sixth Sense" there is the alienation of the boy from the sorrows of those who die violently and of the main character (Willis) even from himself. In "The Happening," this theme is broadened to contemporary people's alienation from each other and from all living things. One of the first lines, after all, is a woman telling her friend dispassionately that she left off in her book "where the killers decide what to do with the crippled woman." Then there is the estrangement of the Wahlberg character from his wife, and to a lesser extent from his friend (Leguizamo). The idea is implied that this alienation has somehow spread to the natural world, which in turn intensifies it and revisits it upon people as a compulsion to destroy themselves. There is a clever use of color--as another and more insightful commentator has mentioned here--to indicate what is really going on, especially in the references to the "mood ring." And so, while Science is able to explain the phenomenon to a certain extent, it really cannot get at the heart of the matter. (For example, a scientist in the film predicts the end of the happening, but the viewer is left with the impression that the love and self-sacrifice displayed by the two main characters cause the end of the event.) Thus, at the dramatic climax of the film, "Mrs. Jones," the most isolated of anyone shown, is also "attacked" by nature, while the couple, physically separated, are drawn back together through a true love and "connectedness" to the other, even at the sacrifice of their own lives, and so are unscathed and bring the happening to an end. Interestingly, neither can remember which of the colors of the mood ring indicates love, suggesting that it is green, so that in a sense, this truly is a "green movie," as some have said.
I don't imagine for a minute that what I've written covers the many nuances and subtle symbols of this movie, but what I have mentioned, I hope, would help others at least to appreciate that there may be more to "The Happening" than (as some seem to think) a failed thriller or horror movie.