Whatever Happened to The Happening?

Zooey in remake of Eyes Wide Shut..I don't think so.

This post contains SPOILERS, so watch out.

Occasionally I have to temper my reviews somewhat on air. Tomorrow will be an occasion such as this. This week I have been to see M Night Shamalyan’s The Happening. Already, I have come up with a few alternative titles for the film:

My first gut reaction on leaving the cinema was, “The Shattening” and that then morphed into “The Haemorrhaging” and now it is simply, “What the fuck happened?”

M Night as we know, started off jolly well with The Sixth Sense. This is proof in itself that some directors have only one good film in them. Just like Michael Cimino with The Deer Hunter.

OK, MNS (I am sick of typing his name, I’m going with this acronym from now on) isn’t quite as one hit wonder as Cimino- I like Signs, in fact I probably like Signs more than any of his other films, even if it’s just for the scene with Joaquin Phoenix with tin foil on his head and the Brazilian news footage of the green guy walking past the kids’ party.

And even if every one is sick of MNS after his hokey The Village and his vain self important self-as-star vehicle The Lady in the Water, the proposition of going to see his latest film, despite bad reviews still seemed a better idea than going to see The Incredible Hulk.

Well, oh dear. Oh dear, oh dear ,oh dear. What indeed did happen? Such was the severity of the bad acting and bad scripting, I actually began to worry about the mental wellbeing of MNS. Credibility challenged as some of his earlier films may be, at least you never saw the man behind the curtain. The film was so badly scripted it was as if the characters were reading cue cards. The dialogue sounded like badly penned written word masquerading as spoken word. In some instances like the first effort of a twelve year old writing a little play to put on for their mum and dad. There are actually points where characters kind of recap the plot to each other, as if for the benefit of latecomers, or as a service to the monumentally stupid.

“I think it might be the plants,”

“Do you think it might be the plants?”

“Yes, it could be the plants and the trees everybody”

"Hang on, are we having marital troubles?"

"Yes, I think we are"

I’m paraphrasing, but you get my gist.



Zooey Deschanel always makes me smile in films- I like her. But I have come to the realisation and accepted the fact that she pretty much plays one type only. The “kooky” girl. In this she is meant to be troubled. She emits trouobled by opening her big eyes wide. Then she is supposed to be scared. She emits scared by opening her eyes slightly wider than she did when she was troubled. She never smiles. Maybe because this is the first film in ages where she hasn't been offered the opportunity to sing a wee song.



We know the film is over when she manages a wee smile.



The worst performances, in a sea of horrible performances, come from Mark Wahlberg and John Leguziamo. Wahlberg is like Fred from Scooby Doo, but with less range. And Leguziamo is clearly channelling his character from Ice Age. I am quite pleased when Leguziamo dies, as it means I don’t have to suffer any more.




The film trundles along with folk dying all over the shop but with no real sense of where it’s going. MNS hasn’t got anything else to offer us after the admittedly quite interesting premise of There’s-a -spooky-thing-that- is-happening-which-makes-people-stop-still-and-then-kill-themselves-suddenly. Beyond that, he's got nothing. Not even a wee twisteroonie like he usually does.





No twist? MNS? Without a twist? Not even a little one? See why I'm genuinely worried about him?




Aside from some genuinely disturbing scenes of suicide and the aftermath of suicide, the film has nothing about it. And the ending I’m afraid is tacked on, preachy and the final scene is nicked wholesale from 28 Weeks Later. Not even the first one, the sequel. That wasn't as good. It may have passed you by.



Maybe MNS thought that nobody made it to the end of 28 Weeks Later. But I DID, matey, and I’m onto you!


Hear me restrain myself tomorrow on Original 106FM when I review The Happening.