The Happening

*** Stars

I am giving this movie three stars because M. Night Shyamalan would want me to.

In a recent interview, Shyamalan told reporters this: "I wanted it to be a fantastic, fun B-movie. The number one thing is I want people to say: 'That was a really fun B-movie.'"

Well, it may not be his greatest film, but he lives up to his word. The Happening is a creeper, one that makes you think beyond the fears of terrorism and man-made weapons.

Everyone knows how I feel about people’s hatred towards M. Night, so I won’t even bother to go into that again. His latest effort is a story of the beginning of the end of mankind. As if there is enough evil in the world, The Happening shows man’s downfall by mass suicide. The opening shot is Central Park in New York on a warm sunny day. Only Shyamalan could make this look like the bowels of hell. We begin to fear days of nature when it is suppose to comfort us from the shadows of night. For some reason, something is happening that is killing humans like ants under someone’s foot.

The story slows down in order to follow Elliot Moore (Mark Wahlberg) and his wife Alma (Zooey Deschanel) traveling through the state of Pennsylvania (Shyamalan is now obsessed with this state, where all of his films since The Sixth Sense have taken place) to try and escape the event that is happening. With them is their friend Julian (John Leguizamo) and his daughter Jess. When the four travel on a train to escape the attacks, the train stops after losing contact with everyone. They are trapped in a small town that no one has ever heard of, which gives them the idea of safety. But once they discover that this is not a terrorist attack and that small towns are being affected, things turn for the worst. Julian leaves to find his wife and Elliot, Amla, and Jess are forced to run for their lives against a force beyond our understanding.

So what is the mystery surrounding these events? I went online after the film to read people’s explanations and theories. I enjoyed someone’s idea that everything is psychosomatic and that once someone believes that they will get sick, they will mentally enter that stage. It doesn’t explain why everyone in Central Park became symptomatic all at the same time, but that theory is very much apart of this feature regardless of its beginning.

The small town paranoia is Shyamalan’s specialty. In Signs, he explored a family’s reconnection through an alien attack in rural Pennsylvania. In The Village, he studied a group of people escaping towards innocence after living in a world of post 9/11 fear. Now in The Happening, he takes one couple who has lost the feeling of love and must rediscover its roots in order to save themselves and the world around them. It sounds kind of ridiculous on paper, but Shyamalan gets his point across through his purposefully fun and scary B-movie approach.

NOTE: After writing this review, I thought of a theory on my own. This is just a theory that may or may not be true. But I think it is a definite possibility. (You may want to see the film before reading this).

It is hard to notice, but even through The Happening’s tagline, Shyamalan delivers brilliance. It shows that all of his films since The Sixth Sense are connected through some sort of dimension.

“We’ve sensed it. We’ve seen the signs. Now, it’s happening.”

Think about it. The Sixth Sense is being able to see dead people. So in The Happening, the power of whatever is attacking these humans is able to see and choose who is dead and who is staying alive.

In Unbreakable, the main character has survived a train wreck that no one else could and has the ability to protect people. It turns out that he is not a human, but a creature with unexplainable power. In The Happening, nature has the ability to protect us, if we are willing to protect it back. It is a creature with unexplainable power.

In Signs, an outside force has attacked the world we live in. They we’re hostile creatures who wanted to destroy the human race. In The Happening, an outside force has attacked our society that is hostile and unknown.

In The Village, a small town must stay inside a border or unknown creatures in the woods will destroy them all. It turns out that these people are actually staying inside a border because of real world fear. Their small group allows them to protect innocence and their own survival. In The Happening, people must stay inside a border consisting of the amount of people in a group. The smaller the group, the better chance of survival.

Even in Lady in the Water, it tells the story of one hotel trying to discover its purpose. In The Happening, it tells the story of one couple trying to discover the purpose to their survival. For both films, it had themes of love.

People may perceive this as Shyamalan giving us only one idea over and over, but I think Shyamalan knows exactly what he’s doing. He is creating a fear that every human feels (the loss of innocence and the end of life) and has taken these ideas and thrown them into existence. Even though his films are about seeing dead people, being attacked by aliens, and seeing a nymph in a pool, we can relate to his ideas just by letting our minds wonder.