The Happening - C

On DVD. Lawyer’s theatrical review is here.

People initially suspect terrorism when people in the Northeast U.S. start killing themselves but when the “happenings” expand from multiple cities into the countryside, other theories are considered. A retreating group of people led by Mark Wahlberg try to piece together the cause. People criticized the overacting by Wahlberg and Zooey Deschanel, but I chose to attribute their behavior to the toxins in the air. The scene where Wahlberg talks to a plastic plant is funnier than intended given Andy Samberg’s recent SNL skit where Wahlberg talks to animals . . .It’s not quite the unmitigated disaster that Lady in the Water is, but writer-director M. Night Shyamalan is a long way from giving us any characters to care about, much less making a cohesive film. He seems fixated on unhappy marriages and the marital woes here serve no real purpose. Nor do any of the plot points where he fails to make any other observation other than humans are raping the earth. Shyamalan has a terrific visual sense and provides some extremely creepy images (multiple bodies falling toward the ground, multiple people suddenly stopping in place). As I’ve said before, Shyamalan needs to adapt a book or direct someone else’s script, because he’s obviously reached a creative impasse. C