The Happening (2008)

Oh no wait...

Tag line: We've Sensed It. We've Seen the Signs. Now... It’s Happening.

Curiosity: My girlfriend and I both thought director/writer M. Night Shyamalan’s The Village was underrated. And we were willing to give him a mulligan for Lady in the Water. And I couldn’t get my girlfriend to watch Who Framed Roger Rabbit?.

Plot: Spoiler alerts abound in this post! SPOILERS!

Mark Wahlberg plays an effeminate high school science teacher married to Zooey Deschanel, who looks like she’s being goosed in 90 percent of her scenes. His best friend is an anxious math teacher/father played by John Leguizamo. More importantly, he’s also the only person whose last name I didn't have to spellcheck.

Anyway, the Norf-east gets attacked by plants. Or rather, plants evolve the ability to make humans kill themselves as a means of protecting themselves from human overpopulation. But it only works on supporting characters.

Thoughts: When you get down to it, Shyamalan is just a glorified B-movie director. His plots are always preposterous, but in the wrong way. His trademark is the big twist ending, at which point his stories tend to collapse under the weight of their own seriousness and mystique. Think of how cool Signs was until you found out the aliens were weak against water. The most plentiful liquid on Earth.

What Shyamalan needs to do is embrace his inner schlock, and The Happening is a good first start. See, there’s nothing redemptive about this movie. The title is stupid. The plot is only vaguely sensible. While it’s true certain plants emit chemicals to affect the life around it, Shyamalan’s concept of how air (and those sinister, sinister wind patterns) works is ludicrous at best.

But therein lays The Happening’s beauty. Because it’s so stupid, it doesn’t matter how bad the performances are. Despite his limited range, Wahlberg has been in some good films (I Heart Huckabees, Three Kings, The Perfect Storm), but here he just seems lost. Same goes for Deschanel, whose flat line readings perfectly complement the two-dimensional storytelling. The film’s best/funniest scene comes when Wahlberg literally (Literally!) tries pleading with a plant, Rodney King-style, to just get along and accept his “good vibes.” Ah heck, I don’t want to spoil the joke, but here’s the full quote:

“Hello. My name is Elliot Moore. I’m just going to talk in a very positive manner, giving off good vibes. We’re just here to use the bathroom, and we’re just going to leave. I hope that’s okay.”

Then he finds out it’s a plastic plant.

There are other hi-larious bits, like Leguizamo’s turn-on-a-dime hostility towards Deschanel and utterly random instances of gun violence, but for the most part, the movie works best when it’s just Wahlberg being crazy. Or whenever there’s a long shot of plants swaying in the wind. SpOoOoOoky.

Reflection: While it’s a little long at 91 minutes, The Happening is truly an underrated comedy. Could it be this decade’s Mallrats?