The Happening is a 2008 science fiction thriller film produced, written, and directed by M. Night Shyamalan. It stars Mark Wahlberg, Zooey Deschanel, John Leguizamo, and Betty Buckley. The story revolves around an inexplicable natural disaster causing mass suicides.
The Happening premiered in New York City on June 10, 2008, and was theatrically released in the United States by 20th Century Fox on June 13. It was a box-office success, grossing $163million worldwide against a budget of up to $60million. The film received negative reviews upon release, with criticism of its acting, characters, writing, and Shyamalan's direction. However, it earned some reappraisal by those who viewed it as a "B movie", as Shyamalan intended, noting its usage of classic tropes.
Plot
In New York City's Central Park, people begin committing mass suicide. The event is believed to be caused by a bio-terrorist attack using an airborne neurotoxin. The behavior quickly spreads across the Northeastern United States. High school science teacher Elliot Moore and his wife Alma are persuaded by Elliot's mathematician colleague Julian to accompany him and his daughter Jess on a train out of Philadelphia. During the trip, the group learns Boston and Philadelphia have been affected. The train loses all radio contact and stops at a small town. When Julian learns his wife has left Boston for Princeton, he decides to look for her and entrusts Jess to the Moores. However, Julian arrives to find Princeton has been affected, causing the driver of the car in which he is riding to ram into a tree. Julian survives but commits suicide by slitting his wrist with a glass shard.
Elliot, Alma, and Jess hitch a ride with a nurseryman and his wife. The nurseryman hypothesizes that plant life has developed a defense mechanism against humans consisting of an airborne toxin that stimulates neurotransmitters and causes humans to kill themselves. The group is later joined by other survivors coming from various directions, and the small crowd chooses to avoid roads and populated areas. When the larger part of the group is affected by the toxin, Elliot suggests the nurseryman was right and the plants are targeting only large groups of people. He splits their group into smaller pockets and they walk along. The trio ends up with a pair of teenage boys, Josh and Jared, who are later shot and killed by the armed residents of a barricaded house.
Elliot, Alma, and Jess wander the countryside and come upon the home of Mrs. Jones, an eccentric and paranoid elderly woman. Jones initially agrees to house the group for the night but is suspicious of them having bad intentions; the next morning, she decides to expel them. In a fury, she leaves the house alone and is affected by the toxin. The shaken Elliot realizes the plants are now targeting individuals. Left with no option when Mrs. Jones strikes her head into several windows, the trio chooses to die and embraces in the yard only to find themselves unaffected by the toxin. The outbreak has abated as quickly as it began.
Three months later, Elliot and Alma have adjusted to their new life with Jess as their adopted daughter. Alma learns she is pregnant and surprises Elliot with the news. On television, an expert compares the natural event to a red tide and warns the epidemic may have only been a harbinger of an impending global disaster. In Paris's Tuileries Gardens, people begin committing mass suicide.
Cast Mark Wahlberg as Elliot Moore Zooey Deschanel as Alma Moore, Elliot's wife John Leguizamo as Julian Betty Buckley as Mrs. Jones Ashlyn Sanchez as Jess, Julian's daughter Frank Collison as nursery owner Victoria Clark as nursery owner Spencer Breslin as Josh Robert Bailey, Jr. as Jared Jeremy Strong as Private Auster M. Night Shyamalan as Joey (voice only)
Production
Following the critical and commercial failure of Lady in the Water (2006), M. Night Shyamalan struggled to sell his next spec script entitled The Green Effect. By January 2007, it was reported several studios had received the screenplay, but none expressed interest enough to purchase it. As a result, Shyamalan began taking notes and collecting ideas from meetings before returning home to Philadelphia to rewrite his script. In March 2007, the film was purchased as The Happening by 20th Century Fox, Mark Wahlberg joined the cast, and a theatrical release date was set for June 13, 2008. The film is Shyamalan's first R-rated project, which he produced alongside Sam Mercer and Barry Mendel. The India-based company UTV Motion Pictures also financed half of the film's budget. On March 15, 2007, Shyamalan described The Happening as a 1960s paranoia film similar to The Birds and Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Production began in August 2007 in Philadelphia, with filming taking place on Walnut Street, in Rittenhouse Square Park, in Masterman High School, on South Smedley Street, and at the 'G' Lodge in Phoenixville. During post-production, the film score was recorded at the Sony Scoring Stage and composed by James Newton Howard in his sixth collaboration with Shyamalan.
Release
Box office The marketing campaign for The Happening was noted for its "aggressive" tactics and "great visuals" that successfully intrigued audiences. According to Deadline Hollywood, the film was negatively targeted by several media outlets that began rooting for the film's failure, including USA Today, while also branding Shyamalan as "the hopelessly arrogant has-been". In its opening weekend, the film grossed $30.5 million, including $13 million on its first day and $10.2 million on its second, exceeding expectations and placing third at the box office. Outside the United States and Canada, the film made $32.1 million across 88 international markets in its first three days.
Home media As of August 2020, the DVD units sold have generated over US$22.4 million in revenue.
Reception
Critical response The website's critical consensus reads, "The Happening begins with promise, but unfortunately descends into an incoherent and unconvincing trifle." Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the a score of 34 out of 100, based on 38 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable" reviews. Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "D" on an A+ to F scale.
Some critics enjoyed it. Glenn Whipp said "Tamping down the self-seriousness in favor of some horrific silliness, M. Night Shyamalan's The Happening plays as a genuinely enjoyable B-movie for anyone inclined (or able) to see it that way".
Kirk Honeycutt of The Hollywood Reporter said the film lacked "cinematic intrigue and nail-biting tension" and "the central menace ... does not pan out as any kind of Friday night entertainment". Varietys Justin Chang felt it "covers territory already over-tilled by countless disaster epics and zombie movies, offering little in the way of suspense, visceral kicks or narrative vitality to warrant the retread". Mick LaSalle wrote in his San Francisco Chronicle review that he considered the film entertaining but not scary. He commented, too, on Shyamalan's writing, opining that, "instead of letting his idea breathe and develop and see where it might go, he jumps all over it and prematurely shapes it into a story".
James Berardinelli said the film had neither "a sense of atmosphere" nor "strong character development", calling its environmental message "way-too-obvious and strident", gave it one and a half stars out of a possible four, and concluded his review by saying "The Happening is a movie to walk out of, sleep through, or—best of all—not to bother with." Times Richard Corliss saw the film as a "dispiriting indication that writer-director M. Night Shyamalan has lost the touch". The Chicago Tribunes Michael Phillips thought the film had a workable premise, but found the characters to be "gasbags or forgetful". Joe Morgenstern of The Wall Street Journal said the film was a "woeful clunker of a paranoid thriller" and highlighted its "befuddling infelicities, insistent banalities, shambling pace and pervasive ineptitude".
Stephen King liked the film, stating: "Of Fox's two summer creepshows [the other being The X-Files: I Want to Believe], give the edge to The Happening, partly because M. Night Shyamalan really understands fear, partly because this time he's completely let himself go (hence the R rating), and partly because after Lady in the Water he had something to prove". Critic Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times, awarding the movie three stars, found it "oddly touching": "It is no doubt too thoughtful for the summer action season, but I appreciate the quietly realistic way Shyamalan finds to tell a story about the possible death of man". William Arnold of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer called it "something different—and a pleasant surprise" among that summer's major Hollywood releases, and approved of its taking "the less-is-best approach". The New York Times Manohla Dargis praised Wahlberg's lead performance, adding that the film "turns out to be a divertingly goofy thriller with an animistic bent, moments of shivery and twitchy suspense".
Philipa Hawker of The Age gave it 3.5 out of 5 stars, commenting on "the mood of the film: a tantalizing, sometimes frustrating parable about the menaces that human beings might face from unexpected quarters," drawing special attention to "the sound of the breeze and the sight of it ruffling the trees or blowing across the grass — an image of tension that calls to mind Antonioni's Blowup". Richard Roeper of the Chicago Sun-Times said "It almost dares you to roll your eyes or laugh at certain scenes that are supposed to be deadly serious. But, you know what, I appreciated this creatively offbeat, daring sci-fi mind-trip". Reviewer Rumsey Taylor said the film moves forward with "jack-in-the-box suspense, traipsing from one garish death to another in a parade of cartoonish terror," and noted how the film seemed like "Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds, only without the birds."
The Happening has also attracted academic attention. Joseph J. Foy, professor of politics and popular culture, describes Shyamalan's film as an expression of "post-environmentalism" in which traditional paradigmatic politics are replaced with a call for the world to "embrace a revolutionary reevaluation of wealth and prosperity not in terms of monetary net worth or material possessions, but in terms of overall well-being". Foy praises the highly complex narrative in which Shyamalan weaves contemporary environmental challenges with hard science and social theory to create a "nightmarish future that... may advance the type of dialogue that can truly change the cultural conversation".
Responses of cast and crew On June 7, 2008, days before the first few reviews for the film came online, Shyamalan told the New York Daily News: "We're making an excellent B movie, that's our goal". Wahlberg offered his own opinion of The Happening in 2010, saying Amy Adams, who was in consideration for the role of Alma Moore, had "dodged the bullet" by not starring in the film. He said, "It was a really bad movie... it. It is what it is... You can't blame me for not wanting to try to play a science teacher. At least I wasn't playing a cop or a crook." About Wahlberg's reaction, Shyamalan said he is fine with his opinion: "Since that would be the only case of that happening — no. But really, no. It's totally his call. However he wants to interpret it."