Catholic in Film School

Sigh.

Despite the fact that the entire theatre was shrieking from laughter, The Happening is a sci-fi-ish thriller where one day people just start flipping out and killing themselves. One chick uses her hair chopsticks to stab herself in the neck, another guy drives into a tree, another one shoots himself…you get the picture. At first everyone thinks it’s biological terrorism, but eventually our protagonist Elliot Moore (Mark Wahlberg) a biology teacher by trade, figures out that the real problem is….the plants. (AAAAAAAAAH!) As it turns out (I know I’m spoiling it…sorry) the real problem is that mother Earth is defending herself against big bad humankind by releasing some sort of hormone/chemical/thingamajig that causes people to kill themselves. (Geeez M. Night, global warming much?) Elliot grabs his wife Alma (Zooey Deschanel), his best friend Julian (John Leguizamo) and Julian’s daughter Jess (Ashlyn Sanchez) to escape the city and find safety somewhere the chemicals haven’t been released into the air. People die, trees triumph…the movie just gets more freaky deaky from there…

I never saw Lady in the Water, but I didn’t believe the hype that M. Night Shyamalan had lost his mojo either. Some of my favorite thrillers are Shyamalan pictures….and I just…I wouldn’t allow myself to believe the hype. Well let me tell you, M. Night Shyamalan has lost his mojo. (Maybe he’s madly in love…or sick? Does anyone know?) Because sweet baby Jesus The Happening was awful. Within the first 20 minutes I turned to my mother and said, “This is the worst movie ever” which of course she promptly shushed and said, “It’ll get better.” (Let’s just say that once the credits rolled some guy a few seats down from me yelled, “That was bulls***!” a statement that the entire theatre promptly applauded.)

Usually I can deal with an otherwise bad movie if the screenwriting is decent and the cinematography is interesting. But the screenwriting was awful and the cinematography was even worse. Much of the dialogue was boring and repetitive (Zooey Deschanel must have asked “Do you think it’s the plants?” at least ten times) and the cinematography was all wrong. Zooey Deschanel is a very beautiful woman, but she has these big round blue eyes that if not framed correctly can make her look wacky. So if you use repeated close-ups of her with these huge blue eyes the scene becomes comical, not scary.

And then there was Mark Wahlberg. It was bad enough that his lines were crazy too (like “Why are you only giving me one piece of useless information at a time?” Whaaaat?) but he also delivered half of them in that fake high-pitched voice people use to talk to a baby. I’ve never met him, but Mark Wahlberg looks like the kind of guy who could put a few mofos’ faces on the ground if he really wanted to…I’m just sayin…

My favorite scene was a tie between one where a guy feeds himself to a group of zoo lions and another particularly hilarious chilling scene where Mark Wahlberg tries to negotiate with a tree not to kill him, his wife, and his best friend’s daughter who is under his care. All I could think was, “Mark, if the tree is really that threatening just drop kick it 300 Spartan style or burn it or something and let’s roll the credits.”

I honestly don’t understand how M. Night could have messed this up so badly. Any form of airborne disease or sickness is utterly terrifying and therefore an awesome device for a film. If I had any control over the marketing of the film I would have demanded the genre be changed to a thriller-comedy just so we could save a little face. Geez louize….

If you were thinking about going to see this movie…don’t…or do…if you’re looking for a good laugh. (But don’t say I didn’t warn you.)

Pax Christi, Rebecca.

PS: Here’s one positive thing—the film has a great title. There, be happy now.