The Happening (2008)

A science teacher, his wife, and a young girl struggle to survive a plague that causes those infected to commit suicide.

Director:

M. Night Shyamalan

Writer:

M. Night Shyamalan

Stars:

Mark Wahlberg, Zooey Deschanel, John Leguizamo

2 wins & 5 nominations.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Mark Wahlberg	...	Elliot Moore
Zooey Deschanel	...	Alma Moore
John Leguizamo	...	Julian
Ashlyn Sanchez	...	Jess
Betty Buckley	...	Mrs. Jones
Spencer Breslin	...	Josh
Robert Bailey Jr.	...	Jared
Frank Collison	...	Nursery Owner
Jeremy Strong	...	Private Auster
Alan Ruck	...	Principal
Victoria Clark	...	Nursery Owner's Wife
M. Night Shyamalan	...	Joey (voice)
Alison Folland	...	Woman Reading on Bench with Hair Pin
Kristen Connolly	...	Woman Reading on Bench
Cornell Womack	...	Construction Foreman

Storyline

Elliot Moore is a high school science teacher who quizzes his class one day about an article in the New York Times. It's about the sudden, mysterious disappearance of bees. Yet again Nature is doing something inexplicable, and whatever science has to say about it will be, in the end, only a theory. Scientists will bring out more theories, but no explanations, when a more urgent dilemma hits the planet. It begins in Central Park. Suddenly and inexplicably, the behavior of everyone in the park changes in a most bizarre and horrible way. Soon, the strange behavior spreads throughout the city and beyond. Elliot, his wife, Alma, and Jess, the young daughter of a friend, will only have theories to guide them where to run and where to hide. But theories may not be enough.

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Plot Keywords:

park | school | teacher | nature | bee | 

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Taglines:

We've Sensed It. We've Seen The Signs. Now... It's Happening.

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Genres:

Sci-Fi | Thriller

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Certificate:

14A

Details

Official Sites:

20th Century Fox [United States] Official site

Country:

USA India France

Language:

English French

Release Date:

11 June 2008 (France)

Also Known As:

L'événement

Filming Locations:

100 W 18th St, New York City, New York, USA

Box Office

Budget:

$48,000,000 (estimated)

Opening Weekend:

£1,632,055 (UK) (13 June 2008)

Gross:

$64,505,912 (USA) (12 September 2008)

Company Credits

Production Co:

Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation, UTV Motion Pictures, Spyglass Entertainment

Technical Specs

Runtime:

91 min

Sound Mix:

SDDS Dolby Digital DTS

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

The exact answer to Julian's math riddle, with the average month having 30 days, is $10,737,418.23. (The answer is not $10,737,418.24, because Julian is asking about the total sum of the amounts from all days, and every amount is an even number except the amount on the first day: $0.01. Therefore the total sum must be an odd number of cents.) In addition, when the month in question has 31 days, then $10,737,418.24 would be the amount on the 31st day and the total sum after 31 days would be $21,474,836.47.

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Goofs

When the students and faculty are leaving the building, a girl in a blue shirt boards a bus. When Elliot and Julian are talking a little while later, the girl in the blue shirt is walking in the background.

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Quotes

[first lines]
Woman Reading on Bench with Hair Pin: I forgot where I am.
Woman Reading on Bench: You're at the place where the killers meet to decide what to do with the crippled girl.

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Crazy Credits

Moving clouds form the backdrop for the opening and closing credits. On the end credits, they've become stormclouds with lightning. On the end credits, M. Night Shyamalan's name vanishes.

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Connections

Referenced in The Cinema Snob: Son of Sleepaway Camp (2012)

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Soundtracks

Piano Concerto No. 21 In C K467 ('Elvira Madigan': 2.Andante)
(1785)
Written by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Performed by Radu Lupu, Uri Segal and English Chamber Orchestra (as The English Chamber Orchestra)
Courtesy of Decca Music Group Ltd.
Under License from Universal Music Enterprises

User Reviews

It might be cliché, but it has to be said: The Happening is not happening.

Shyamalan has proved to us earlier that he can be as good as the best with masterpieces of cinema with The Sixth Sense and Unbreakable. Yet, since then, he has declined steadily. Signs and Village were good movies, but with Lady in the Water and now The Happening, he has touched a level of incompetence that could never have been expected of him.

The Happening is about a pandemic that is gripping north-eastern USA. It starts with a stunning sequence of events that show people succumb to an unspecified threat – the brilliance of this opening repeated only once more for a five-minute sequence towards the end of the movie. Unfortunately, Shyamalan's writing is a big let-down for the rest. As the focus moves from metropolitans to towns and from crowds to smaller groups, the sense of fear is lost – the biggest sin a horror movie can commit. In the oft repeated criticism for its director, this movie would have been best served as a half-hour episode of Twilight Zone to make it really work.

And to add woe, the actors do not do much to better the experience – Mark Wahlberg and Zooey Deschanel are grossly miscast as the protagonists. Any of his previous leading men (Bruce Willis, Mel Gibson, Joaquin Phoenix and Paul Giamatti) can be imagined to have done a better job for the Science teacher that Wahlberg plays. The camera scrutinizes the performance to a degree that requires an actor with strength in emotions – Wahlberg instead brings a physical presence that the role does not need. Zooey, on the other hand, struts around like in a Disney movie, not for once threatened by the pandemonium.

This time, though Shyamalan humbles his vanity – you don't see him on screen. He now should swallow his pride and leave the writing to the writers. Armed with a better script, we can still expect Shyamalan to make his future movies worth waiting for. For now it is only the memory of the opening sequence, which can be proclaimed as mind-numbing greatness, which is really worth taking away from this movie.