The Happening (M. Night Shyamalan 2008)
Posted on October 31 at 15.43, 2008 by Eric Mahleb
The name M. Night Shyamalan is starting to sound very pretentious.
Although the name is a bit difficult to remember, people usually still manage to mumble something about M and Night followed by some uncomprehensible nonsense. But this confusion adds to its mysterious and intriguing aspect, as it did for the people of Eastwick who tried hard to remember the name Daryl Van Horne. The mystic increased as the director gained international fame with The 6th Sense (1999) and then with Unbreakable (2000). After these two films, M. Night Shyamalan could fully live up this his name by having it displayed in large print above the title of his films, with studio marketing people proudly displaying ‘a film by M. Night Shyamalan’ or ‘M. Night Shyamalan presents’ as if the director, after only less than a handful of films to his credit, could be compared to a Hitchcock or to other Hollywood directing legends.
Unfortunately, Shyamalan has failed to live up to the mystic of his name and to the hype of his reputation. While The 6th Sense was a good, not great, movie, Unbreakable started to show a few weaknesses while Signs (2002) clearly demonstrated that the director was either going through a really bad spell, or that, and this is more likely, the 6th Sense had been a fluke. His films since have proved the later and his most recent, The Happening, is just one more nail in the coffin of this so called new master of horror.
The Happening, about an unknown and never explained suicide-inducing toxin spreading across the North East of the US, has some good moments, especially in the first 30 minutes, and offers an interesting take on man vs nature. However, Shyamalan can not keep it up and proceeds to ruin the next 55 minutes by instering silly comic scenes whose purpose is a total mystery to me and by using so many cliches that one can not help but to feel that the director is trying very hard to scare us. The desire to scare overcomes to need to remain realistic with the result being that the viewer questions rather than feels. In addition, Mark Wahlberg, whom we know is capable of pulling some interesting performances as he did in The Departed (2006), feels totally lost and confused as a romantic scientist and the chemistry between him and Zooey Deschanel is equivalent to mixing bleach with vinegar.
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