The Happening

The Happening
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	M. Night Shyamalan
Produced by	Barry Mendel Sam Mercer M. Night Shyamalan
Written by	M. Night Shyamalan
Narrated by	Andrew Rhodes
Starring	Mark Wahlberg Zooey Deschanel John Leguizamo Ashlyn Sanchez Spencer Breslin Betty Buckley
Music by	James Newton Howard
Cinematography	Tak Fujimoto
Editing by	Conrad Buff
Studio	Spyglass Entertainment UTV Software Communications Blinding Edge Pictures
Distributed by	20th Century Fox
Release date(s)	June 12, 2008: Thailand June 11, 2008: Belgium, France June 13, 2008: United States, United Kingdom, India, Brazil
Running time	90 min.
Country	United States
Language	English French
Budget	US $60 million
Gross revenue	Domestic $64,506,874 Foreign $98,896,925 Worldwide $163,403,799

The Happening is a 2008 American thriller film written, co-produced and directed by M. Night Shyamalan that follows a man and his family as they try to escape from an inexplicable natural disaster. The plot revolves around a mysterious neurotoxin that causes any person coming into contact with it to commit suicide. The protagonist, a science teacher named Elliot Moore (Mark Wahlberg), attempts to escape from the substance with his wife and friends as hysteria grips the East Coast of the United States. The film does not feature the director's trademark of a twist ending, one of his few films not to have one.

It was advertised as being M. Night Shyamalan's first R-rated film and received mostly negative reviews from film critics.

Plot

This plot summary may be too long or overly detailed. Please help improve it by removing unnecessary details and making it more concise. (October 2009)

In Central Park, New York City, people inexplicably begin committing mass suicide. First they become disoriented and motionless, before resorting to the most convenient means of killing themselves. Initially believed to be a bioterrorist attack, the epidemic quickly spreads across the northeastern United States.

Elliot Moore (Mark Wahlberg), a high school science teacher in Philadelphia, receives news of the epidemic at school and decides to leave the city by train with his wife, Alma Moore (Zooey Deschanel), to Harrisburg. They are accompanied by his friend and fellow teacher Julian (John Leguizamo) and his eight-year-old daughter Jess (Ashlyn Sanchez). Just after they leave Philadelphia, Rittenhouse Square is affected by the event and people start to kill themselves around the park. Then the train mysteriously loses radio contact with civilization. At a restaurant Julian can no longer phone his wife and decides to leave his daughter with Elliot and Alma in order to travel to Princeton, New Jersey, to find her. He gets a ride with a group of people in a Jeep Wrangler. It is by now clear that the epidemic is transmitted by air. While travelling, Julian and his fellow passengers fall victim to the epidemic soon after arriving in an already-hard-hit Princeton: the infected air filters through a small slit in the convertible Jeep's cloth roof, compelling the driver first to bring it to a halt and then plunge it into a nearby tree. Only Julian appears to survive the crash, but, when he exits the car, apparently unharmed, he proceeds to slit his wrists with a shard of glass.

Elliot, Alma and the now-fatherless Jess manage to hitch a ride with a botanist (Frank Collison) and his wife (Victoria Clark). The botanist believes that trees and plants are responsible, as he mentions that they can release chemicals. Although initially skeptical, given his idiosyncrasies and apparent obsession with plant life, Alma and Elliot become increasingly enamored with this view. After driving for some time through the country, they find themselves at a desolate crossroads surrounded by infected towns. Other cars soon join them. A U.S. Army soldier suggests that they move away on foot from roads and populated centers, which he regards as obvious terrorist targets, to avoid being infected.

The survivors split into two groups and begin to travel across an open plain. The smaller group, in which Elliot, Alma and Jess find themselves, suddenly hears gunshots from the direction of the other group: they deduce correctly that the epidemic is upon them. An overwrought Elliot, striving to concentrate amidst the pandemonium, draws on his scientific creed to conclude that it is conveyed by an airborne neurotoxin exuded by grass and plants. He suspects that the larger the group of people the more likely it is to trigger the defense mechanism. With a menacing gale approaching, Elliot splits the group into smaller pockets, thus further isolating himself, Alma and Jess, although they are accompanied by two teenage boys, Josh (Spencer Breslin) and Jared (Robert Bailey, Jr.).

After finding a truck abandoned in a field with the keys in the ignition, they make their way to a luxury home they believe to be abandoned and go in to look for food. Josh and Jared find fruit in the kitchen but realize it is fake. They quickly realize it is a builder's decorated model home, and have to flee when infected people start making their way onto the property. One man turns on an industrial riding mower and allows it to run over him, resulting in a bloody death.

Elliot, still looking for food, comes across an old house with survivors inside. He tries to communicate with them, but they are unwilling to open the doors, believing that he may infect them. The teens are shot dead by the survivors when they try to break into the house. Elliot, Alma and Jess, now completely on their own, continue to travel cross-country. They stumble upon the isolated house of one Mrs. Jones (Betty Buckley), an elderly oddball who keeps no contact with the outside world and is, therefore, unaware of the current disaster. Although she permits the trio to supper with her and stay the night, she proves a harsh and paranoid host, constantly accusing them of conspiring to rob or murder her.

The following morning, while standing in her garden, impervious to Elliot's supplications, Mrs. Jones becomes infected and commits suicide by smashing her head through the windows of the house. Terrified of sharing her fate, Elliot locks himself in the basement. He is separated from Alma and Jess, who are playing in the neighboring spring house. They are able to communicate, however, through an old talking tube, with which Elliot warns them of the threat and has them shut the windows and doors. Conversing with his wife, Elliot expresses his love for her before deciding that, if he is to die, he would prefer to spend his remaining time with her. They all leave the safety of their buildings and embrace in the yard, surprised to find themselves unaffected by the neurotoxin. The outbreak seems to have abated as quickly as it began, just as a scientist predicted on a television show the previous day.

Three months later, Elliot and Alma have adjusted to their new life with Jess as their adopted daughter. On television, an expert interviewee, comparing the event to a red tide, warns that the epidemic may have only been a warning, like "the first spot of a rash". Elliot takes Jess to the bus stop for her first day of school while Alma stays at home, timing a pregnancy test, which turns out positive. When he returns, Alma embraces him with the news in front of their apartment.

In Paris, at the conclusion of the film, the pandemic appears to reoccur when people walking through the Tuileries Garden of the Louvre Palace suddenly hear a scream and cease to move as the wind rustles through the trees and the sky turns dark.

Cast

• Mark Wahlberg as Elliot Moore, a high school science teacher from the city of Philadelphia, who is married to Alma.
• Zooey Deschanel as Alma Moore, Elliot's estranged wife.
• John Leguizamo as Julian, a high school math teacher and Elliot's best friend.
• Ashlyn Sanchez as Jess, Julian's daughter.
• Spencer Breslin as Josh, a teenage boy who with his friend Jared and joins up with Elliot, Alma, and Jess.
• Frank Collison as The Nursery Owner, the greenhouse owner, who also believed what was causing the events.
• Betty Buckley as Mrs. Jones, a woman who lives alone in an isolated house in rural Pennsylvania.
• Jeremy Strong as Private Auster, a Private First Class in the United States Army who fled from his base after finding all of the Soldiers there have killed themselves using barbed wire.
• M. Night Shyamalan is credited as "Joey", the man with whom Alma secretly meets, although the character does not appear on-screen.
• Victoria Clark as Botanist's Wife, the wife of the nursery owner.
• Robert Bailey Jr. as Jared, Josh's friend.
• Reggie Kania as Reggie, Jared's friend.
• Yonathan Parra as Zito, Josh's friend.
• Don Castro as Philadelphia Police Officer, traffic cop in Rittenhouse Square Park.

Soundtrack

The soundtrack for The Happening was composed by James Newton Howard. It was released on June 3, 2008.

1. "Main Titles" - 2:18
2. "Evacuating Philadelphia" - 2:21
3. "Vice Principal" - 1:56
4. "Central Park" - 2:58
5. "We Lost Contact" - :59
6. "You Can't Just Leave Us Here" - 1:43
7. "Rittenhouse Square" - 1:59
8. "Five Miles Back" - 1:13
9. "Princeton" - 3:06
10. "Jess Comforts Elliot" - 2:31
11. "My Firearm Is My Friend" - 2:59
12. "Abandoned House" - 1:32
13. "Shotgun" - 4:27
14. "You Eyein' My Lemon Drink?" - 4:28
15. "Mrs. Jones" - 1:44
16. "Voices" - 1:36
17. "Be With You" - 3:41
18. "End Title Suite" - 8:36

Production

In January 2007, Shyamalan submitted a spec script entitled The Green Effect to various studios, but none expressed interest enough to purchase it. The director collected ideas and notes from meetings, returning home to Philadelphia to "rewrite" it, and finally 20th Century Fox greenlit the project.^[1] Now titled The Happening, the film was produced by Shyamalan and Barry Mendel and is the former's first R-rated project.^[2]

In March 15, 2007, Shyamalan describes the film as "a paranoia movie from the 1960s on the lines of The Birds (1963) and Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956)."^[3]

Later in March, Wahlberg, with whom Shyamalan had been negotiating at the same time as his deal with Fox, was cast into the lead role of the $57 million project. Shyamalan had previously cast Wahlberg's brother Donnie in The Sixth Sense. An India-based company, UTV, co-financed fifty percent of the film's budget and distributed it in India, while Fox took care of other territories. Production began in August in Philadelphia.^[4] The release date was June 13, 2008, intentionally set for Friday the 13th to suit the thriller.^[4]

Critical reaction

The Happening has received mostly negative reviews from film critics.^[5] Rotten Tomatoes reported that only 18%, based on 168 reviews, gave positive appraisals.^[6] At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the film scored a 34, based on 38 reviews.^[5]

On June 8, 2008, days before the first few reviews for the film came online, M. Night Shyamalan had this to say to the Daily News (New York): "We're making an excellent B movie, that's our goal."^[7]

Some critics liked it because of this. In fact, 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.^[8]

Kirk Honeycutt of The Hollywood Reporter said the film lacked "cinematic intrigue and nail-biting tension" and that "the central menace [...] does not pan out as any kind of Friday night entertainment."^[9] Variety’s Justin Chang felt that 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."^[10] Mick LaSelle at San Francisco Chronicle felt that the film was 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."^[11] Time's Richard Corliss saw the film as a "dispiriting indication that writer-director M. Night Shyamalan has lost the touch".^[12] Chicago Tribune's Michael Phillips thought the film had a workable premise, but found the characters "gasbags or forgetful".^[13] Joe Morgenstern of The Wall Street Journal said that the film was a "woeful clunker of a paranoid thriller" and highlighted its "befuddling infelicities, insistent banalities, shambling pace and pervasive ineptitude".^[14]

Stephen King liked the film, stating "Of Fox's two summer creepshows, 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."^[15] Critic Roger Ebert, of Chicago Sun-Times, awarding the movie 3 out of 4 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."^[16] The New York Times’s 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".^[17] Philipa Hawker of The Age gave it 3.5 out of 5 stars, commenting on "the mood of the film: a tantalising, sometimes frustrating parable about the menaces that human beings might face from unexpected quarters," drawing especial 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."^[18] Richard Roeper of Chicago Sun-Times stated "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."^[19]

The film was nominated for Worst Picture, Worst Screenplay, Worst Actor (Mark Wahlberg, along with his performance in Max Payne) and Worst Director (M. Night Shyamalan) at the 29th Golden Raspberry Awards; it lost in the former three categories to The Love Guru, while the Worst Director prize went to Uwe Boll.

Box office performance

On its opening day, The Happening grossed $13 million. Over the weekend, the total gross came in at $30,517,109 in 2,986 theaters in the United States and Canada, averaging to about $10,220 per venue, and ranking #3 at the box office, behind The Incredible Hulk and Kung Fu Panda.^[20] Foreign box office gross for opening weekend was an estimated $32.1 million.^[21] Total gross for that weekend was $62.7 million. The total gross of the film as of July 5, 2009 stands at $163.4 million.

Home media

The film was released on DVD and Blu-ray Disc on October 7, 2008. It opened at #3 at the DVD sales chart, making $11.3m off 566,000 units sold in the first week of release. As of December 2009, 1,094,000 DVD units have been sold translating to over $21m in revenue.^[22] It appeared at the top of rentals chart in its first week of release^{[citation needed]}, beating out all other new releases.

References

External links

• The Happening Official site
• The Happening at the Internet Movie Database
• The Happening at Rotten Tomatoes
• The Happening at Metacritic
• The Happening at Box Office Mojo
• The Happening at Allmovie
• Script Review of The Green Effect, 01/07/07 draft by LatinoReview.com