Director: M Night Shyamalan
Starring: Mark Wahlberg, Zooey Deschanel, John Leguizamo, Ashlyn Sanchez
Rating: ★★★½
For a lot of people, The Happening was the final straw for Shyamalan when is first came out. His previous couple of films were harshly reviewed and audiences equally didn’t think much. But the concept of plants killing the humans on the planet was too much for some.
If you think about the plot objectively; a group of people trying to outrun plants that are releasing poison into the air that makes people suicidal, it feels almost like a 1950s B-movie. Shyamalan, though, doesn’t present The Happening as a B-movie. Here’s it’s presented with realism, and it takes itself very seriously. While there are funny moments, this is made as a thriller.
For the most part the film isn’t scary. It does have some unsettling moments, but this isn’t a film to watch to be scared. It’s tonally inconsistent and doesn’t blend that well, with some tense character driven moments, such as the people in the house who won’t let them come in and end up shooting out from the boarded-up windows. Contrasting the tension with some laugh out loud ridiculous moments, such as the characters running away from the wind. It can’t decide what it wants to be. There is a serious tone, but at its heart this is a B-movie and if it leant into that more, this wouldn’t have clashed with people so much when it first came out.
The last section, with the woman’s house in the middle of nowhere, is the scariest bit. It feels like a precursor for Shyamalan’s later film The Visit. She is completely unhinged and the performance from Betty Buckley is absolutely perfect. From the moment Mark Wahlberg meets her, you’ll be begging for them to just leave and find somewhere else to stay. Honestly the film could have been an extended version of this scene and it would have been a really good film.
Thankfully the main driving force of the film, the characters, are really well done. Deschanel and Wahlberg are both really good as the leads, carrying the emotional weight of the story. The side characters are also interesting. It’s the characters that make this film overcome its shortcomings and make it enjoyable to watch.
The Happening is not Shyamalan’s best film, not by a long stretch, but it is no where near as bad as people made it out to be when it was first released. With some great humour (not all of it intentional), great characters and a short run time this is a fine film. The idea is great and if the script had more direction, then this could have been a great film. It’s still enjoyable to watch as it is.
Ashley Manning 
Thanks for reviewing this film. Again, I stand in the margins by saying that I enjoy it every time I watch it. The limited shots and camera angles as one person after another shoot themselves are masterful and are mindful of old film noir, only in color. And don’t get me started about someone putting themselves in the path of a mower. This is who M Night Shyamalan is, a writer and director of often benign and simplistic stories with those injected moments like a husband talking to his wife who is pinned against a tree and is only alive because the pressure is keeping her from bleeding to death. I hope he never kowtows to the mob and keeps doing what he loves to do.
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Thank you for commenting. I was a bit late to the game with Shyamalan. I don’t know why, but in the last year I’ve nearly watched everything he’s done. He does write great characters. His dialogue is stylised in a way I really like, especially with his children characters.
I think if Old is anything to go by then he is still going to be making films his way for a long time.
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