Film Review: The Happening

Liverpool Daily Post

THE HAPPENING (Cert. 15, 90 mins)
Stars: Mark Wahlberg, Zooey Deschanel, John Leguizamo, Ashlyn Sanchez, Betty Buckley, Spencer Breslin, Alan Ruck
Directed by M. Night Shyamalan

DIRECTOR M. Night Shyamalan has consistently toyed with and subverted expectations, and The Happening will certainly shock and surprise audiences who enjoyed his earlier films like The Sixth Sense, Unbreakable and The Village, though not in a good way.

A series of chilling and bizarre episodes in major American cities leads to mass suicide. Panic sweeps the nation.

Philadelphia high school teacher Elliot Moore (Mark Wahlberg) heads into the Pennsylvanian farmlands with his wife Alma (Zooey Deschanel) taking with them maths teacher Julian (John Leguizamo) and his eight-year-old daughter, Jess, right.

Elliot and his band of fellow travellers quickly come to realise that nothing can stop the invisible killer which seems destined to wipe out the entire human race.

The Happening uses a high school principal (Alan Ruck) as a crude mouthpiece to distil the facts and spark Elliot’s escape.

Catastrophe quickly engulfs the central protagonists, leading to some comical death scenes like a man laying down in front of a lawn mower, and a final stand-off at a farmhouse owned by an old lady who is even more cuckoo than the plot.

Wahlberg and Deschanel have never been more wooden.