The Happening (2008 film)

The Happening
File:Thehappening1 large.jpg Theatrical release poster
Directed by	M. Night Shyamalan
Written by	M. Night Shyamalan
Produced by	Barry Mendel Sam Mercer M. Night Shyamalan
Starring	Mark Wahlberg Zooey Deschanel John Leguizamo
Cinematography	Tak Fujimoto
Edited by	Conrad Buff
Music by	James Newton Howard
Distributed by	20th Century Fox
Release dates	June 11 2008: Belgium, France June 13 2008: United States, United Kingdom, India
Running time	90 min.
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	US $60 million

The Happening is a 2008 American apocalyptic film written, co-produced and directed by M. Night Shyamalan. It stars Mark Wahlberg and Zooey Deschanel. Production began in August 2007 in Philadelphia. In France and the French-speaking part of Belgium, it was released under the name Phénomènes (Phenomena) on June 11, 2008. In Spain, the film is known as "El Incidente" (The Incident). And in most Latin-American countries it is known as "El Fin de los Tiempos" (The End of Times).

Plot

In the northeast part of America, people suddenly begin committing suicide en masse. First they become disoriented, then stop moving, and finally find the quickest way to kill themselves. The pandemic begins in parks, and quickly spreads to nearby population centers. It is initially believed to be a bioterrorist attack, but this is ruled out as the events increase in frequency.

Elliot Moore (Mark Wahlberg) is a science teacher in Philadelphia. After the school is informed of the pandemic, he decides to leave the city with his wife, Alma Moore (Zooey Deschanel), and his fellow math teacher, Julian (John Leguizamo), who is also bringing his eight-year-old daughter, Jess (Ashlyn Sanchez). The train soon stops at a small town in western Pennsylvania; train services are discontinued after the crew loses contact with "everyone." Julian finds out that the "attacks" have hit Princeton, where his wife is currently headed, and leaves Jess with Elliot while he hitches a ride in an attempt to retrieve her. However, the town has already been hit by the pandemic, and he commits suicide along with his travelling companions.

Meanwhile, Elliot, Alma, and Jess manage to hitchhike with a botanist and his wife; the man explains his theory that plants are attacking people as a defense mechanism. He elaborates on the complex mechanisms that often seem to appear spontaneously, involving strategies such as attracting predators to kill off specific threats and fostering communication between different species of plants. As they drive, they find themselves surrounded on all sides by affected towns. A number of other cars arrive in the same location. A soldier, Private First Class Auster, suggests moving away from the population centers on foot to avoid any attacks, as the pandemic has been occurring in smaller and smaller populations.

The group of survivors splits into two, with Elliot, Alma, and Jess in a smaller group. Auster's group is struck by the pandemic within earshot of Elliot, and he concludes that it is likely caused by an airborne neurotoxin exuded by the surrounding plants. The larger the group of people, the more likely it is to trigger the defense mechanism. Elliot makes the group split into three smaller ones with Elliot, Alma, Jess, and two teenage boys staying together.

While looking for food for Jess, Elliot's group finds a boarded up house with survivors inside, still believing the pandemic to be a terrorist attack. They are unwilling to open the doors, and when the two teenage boys begin to aggressively force an entry, they are shot dead. Elliot's group is forced to leave. They make their way to the house of an elderly woman, who lives in complete isolation; thus, she is ignorant of the pandemic. Though she allows them to stay, she proves to be a harsh host and a paranoid woman. In the morning, Elliot finds himself alone; going downstairs, he hears the voices of Alma and Jess but cannot find them. He inadvertently enters the old woman's room and she angrily insists that they leave immediately.

The woman storms out of the house into the garden, where she is affected by the neurotoxin. Realizing that the defense mechanism has become even more sensitive, Elliot locks himself inside the house. Elliot finds himself in a room where he can hear Alma and Jess. He finds a speaking tube, which leads to a shed outside the house. Conversing with his wife, he says that he would want nothing more than to be with her. They relinquish themselves to their fate, but the neurotoxin doesn't affect them: the pandemic is over.

Three months later, Elliot and Alma have adjusted to a new life with Jess as their adopted daughter. On television, an environmentalist warns that the pandemic may only have been a warning, like a rash that precedes an infection. Elliot takes Jess to the bus stop for the first day of school while Alma stays at home, timing a home pregnancy test. When he returns, Alma greets him with a smile, and they embrace. In the Jardin des Tuileries, Paris, the pandemic hits again.

Cast

• Mark Wahlberg as Elliot Moore, a high school science teacher from 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 friend.
• Ashlyn Sanchez as Jess, Julian's daughter.
• Spencer Breslin as Josh, a teenage boy who with his friend Jared temporarily travels with Elliot, Alma, and Jess.
• Betty Buckley as Mrs. Jones, a woman who lives in an isolated home in rural Pennsylvania.
• Jeremy Strong as Private Auster, a private in the US Army who fled from his station after finding all of the soldiers having killed themselves in the barbwire.
• Brian O'Halloran as "Jeep Driver".
• M. Night Shyamalan as "Joey", the man with whom Alma secretly meets.

Production

In January 2007 Shyamalan submitted a spec script entitled The Green Effect to various studios, but none expressed enough interest to purchase the script. The director collected ideas and notes from meetings, returning home to Philadelphia to rewrite the script, and 20th Century Fox greenlit the project. Now titled The Happening, the film was produced by Shyamalan and Barry Mendel and was the director's first R-rated project. Shyamalan compared the film to The Birds (1963) and Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956).

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. The India-based company UTV will co-finance 50 percent of the film's budget and distribute the film in India, with Fox distributing in the rest of the territories. Production began in August in Philadelphia. The release date for The Happening was on June 13, 2008, intentionally set for Friday the 13th to suit the thriller.

Soundtrack

Main article: The Happening (soundtrack)

The score to The Happening was composed by Oscar-nominated composer James Newton Howard. He recorded his score with the Hollywood Studio Symphony at the Sony Scoring Stage with a 90-piece orchestra, and featured solos by cellist Maya Beiser. The Original Motion Picture Soundtrack for The Happening was released by Varese Sarabande Records on June 3, 2008.

Critical reaction

The Happening has received mostly negative reviews from film critics. Rotten Tomatoes reported that 21% of critics gave the film positive reviews, based upon a sample of 130 reviews. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the film has received an average score of 35, based on 35 reviews. The film received an average score of 45.6% from 55 film critics, according to Movie Tab.

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. Variety 's Justin Chang thought the story "... 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 LaSelle at San Francisco Chronicle felt the film was entertaining but not scary. He commented on Shyamalan's writing, saying "... 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." Time's Richard Corliss saw the film as "dispiriting indication that writer-director M. Night Shyamalan has lost the touch" Chicago Tribune's Michael Phillips thought the film had workable premise, but found the characters "gasbags or forgetful" Joe Morgenstern of Wall Street Journal said the film was "woeful clunker of a paranoid thriller" and described it as "befuddling infelicities, insistent banalities, shambling pace and pervasive ineptitude".

Roger Ebert, of Chicago Sun-Times, was the leading critic to praise the film. Giving the movie 3 out of 4 stars, Ebert found it oddly touching and commented that "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." New York Times's Manohla Dargis praised Mark Wahlberg's lead performance and said " [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 tantalising, sometimes frustrating parable about the menaces that human beings might face from unexpected quarters" and highlighted "sinister recurring moments is 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."

Box office performance

On its opening day (Friday the 13th) 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, ranking #3 at the box office. Foreign box office gross for opening weekend was an estimated $32.1 million. Total gross for the weekend is $62.7.0 million. The net gross of the film now stands at $75 million.

External links

• Official site
• The Happening at IMDb
• The Happening at Rotten Tomatoes
• The Happening at Metacritic
• The Happening at Box Office Mojo
• Template:Amg movie
• Script Review of The Green Effect, 01/07/07 draft by LatinoReview.com