The Happening

The Happening is a film that might ask too much of the audience with out giving enough in return, but I think contemporary American cinema generally asks too little. I suggest people approach The Happening with a reading that presumes that the film was misfiled as genre horror. In other words, the promotion campaign for The Happening prepared the audience for a film that would attempt to horrify them with the traditional elements and tropes of the genre, but at e genre ach turn it was anything but %u2013 leaving the audience disgruntled and unwilling to see the film for what it was. I would ask viewers to examine how M. Night Shyamalan is attempting to induce a meta-reading of the film through the subversion of expectations.
Now, The Happening may be a failed experiment and adapting such a narrative tool usually found in prose fiction to film may have gone awry; but not allowing an audience to get lost in %u2018the story%u2019 by intentionally breaking the spell of the fiction is a perfectly acceptable maneuver to implore that audience to relate what the fiction contains to the world outside the fiction. The Happening was not trying to frighten you into thinking that plants will eventually thin out the human race by releasing spores that will make us all kill ourselves, but that the Earth and our actions against it will eventually catch up with us.

Jun 27 - 02:13 AM

Walter Edvalson

Ok Jake, let's see if I understand what you are saying - since you don't make sense - this is actually a good flim, but since everyone was expecting a horror movie, we just don't get it.

Maybe you meant to say something else, but that was what I got from your comment; which still doesn't make sense. So how about this...it SUCKED.

M. Night Shyamalan is a flash in the pan and really only had one good movie which idiot's like me keep thinking that he's got to put out a good movie someday (he did it once).

And I'm sure you know better than all the critics and people like me that saw this stinker of a movie - we just didn't get it, right?

Maybe Jake, you just love M. Night Shyamalan and will always defend his crap. I bet that's it.

OK, I wait with baited breath for your responce.

Jun 27 - 12:28 PM

Jake Henson

First of all, I didn%u2019t like The Happening very much, but I generally try to see what filmmaker%u2019s point may be %u2013 especially when he or she is trying something progressive. So, when I say I didn%u2019t like it that does not mean that I think it a total failure and as such don%u2019t need to shut my brain down and trash it with cliched phrases. Secondly, I%u2019m a bit of a contrarian and all the negative press on The Happening I was spurred to approach the film with a fresh reading. I%u2019m sorry if my points on this particular film seem a bit confused or perhaps poorly explained. I%u2019ll try put it a different way.
I do think that The Happening is a good film and I%u2019ll tell you why %u2013 because it accomplished what it set out to do. Once we establish that something is a piece of art, the very simplest level we can evaluate it on is whether or not it completes and is faithful to its concept. The Happening does this and as such I consider it a success. Now, whether The Happening succeeds on any other level is obviously open for debate.
I think one reason that many people didn%u2019t enjoy this film is because it never did what one might expect a horror film ought to do. I use ought in reference to genre horror, which I feel The Happening was advertised as being. That being said - many viewers went into the film with certain expectations, which obviously weren%u2019t met. I think we%u2019ll agree that dashed expectations are somewhat commonplace when it comes to M. Night Shyamalan%u2019s work. Though, I%u2019ll also add that I think that the public%u2019s expectations of his works are part of the reason his films tend to do poorly with critics. Perhaps many people see M. Night as a one trick filmmaker because they expect him to perform said trick as well as he did previously; comparing one artists film to another, even his or her own, is a direct rout to a misreading.
In reference to your comment that I think I know better than others who saw this film and gave it a bad review, I write this: An individuals opinion is just that %u2013 his. I offer my reading of the film in response to it and to attributes of the film that I feel are being marginalized because of the sort of falling in line with popular reception critics tend to do. I not only offer my opinion of the film - but also do my own close reading of it, which is something more critics should do. It would make reading reviews much more interesting and writing them much more profitable. So, if the popular reception of The Happening is poor and viewers and critics are watching for what sort of play M. Night Shyamalan will make to get back to techniques that have been successful for him in the past, then they are not evaluating this film for what it is attempting to do and especially for what it achieves.
So, yes Walter %u2013 I think that because of people%u2019s expectations they did not get it. Though, by it I don%u2019t mean to say the entire film, but the more subtle style of the film that asks, or perhaps more candidly, forces the audience to read the allusions and allegories of the film by barring them access to the story, or if you will %u2013 the genre horror elements of the film. Personally, I would cite The Happening%u2019s score as being chiefly responsible for drawing me out of the film and leading me to this particular reading.
So, what did you think? Of course, other than that it SUCKED.

Jun 28 - 10:45 PM

Tim Seitz

I don't think any reasonable people go to an M. Night Shyamalan movie expecting genre horror. For the few that still go to his movies they are expecting a gripping, tense film, with a big shocking twist at the end.

This was a bad movie. The only redeeming quality was that it was unintentionally funny.

Jul 1 - 01:47 PM

Todd S

I didn't approach this film as a horror film. It is a fantasy film IMO and a pretty bad one. Its plot holes and lack of logic damage it. The actors were either wooden or cheesy. It never achieves the level needed to suspend disbelief. Sorry Jake, while I agree with you in general about American Cinema, I don't think this movie movie is made any better by "reading" it from the perspective of a different genre due to any percieved "misfiling."

Jul 11 - 04:12 PM