I see scary plants

The Happening
(dir. M. Night Shyamalan)
(starring Mark Wahlberg, Zooey Deschanel, John Leguizamo)

(*** out of ****)

Movies like this walk a very fine line. One on hand, I love a movie that makes me think, but I hate a movie that is so absurd it makes no sense. The more I let all the parts of M. Night Shyamalan's sixth Hollywood endeavor germinate, the more I begin to believe that this film is more of the former rather than the latter.

M. Night's chosen path as a filmmaker reminds of one of those awesomely bad "No Fear" T-shirts that were popular for a hot minute in my formative middle school years: "If you're not living on the edge then you're taking up too much space." Shyamalan has consistently tread on that hair's breadth of a line between genius and poppy-cock (at least in my own estimation) since he burst onto the Hollywood scene almost ten years ago.

Shyamalan knocked one out of the park with his first film 1999's the Sixth Sense. The film with the "killer twist," scored huge at the box office, and landed eight Oscar nominations (including two for Shyamalan himself for writing and directing). It was unheard of that a "scary" movie could play so well for the snooty Academy, so it was not necessarily a disappointment when the film tallied a nasty goose-egg on the big night. Also raking in nearly $300 million in domestic box office on a modest $55 million budget is not too shabby.

Shyamalan has yet to replicate the magic of the Sixth Sense in terms of universal appeal, but he has stayed true to his own style each time out, sometimes to his detriment. With one harrowing exception M. Night has always recouped his film's budget in domestic box office receipts, and that generally keep someone interested in financing you're films no matter how weird they are.

His second film Unbreakable retained the high-powered star that powered his first success, Bruce Willis, and added the money hungry Samuel L. Jackson (I say that lovingly because Jackson seems to do every movie that he reads; he's been in some world class bombs). It was an homage to Shyamalan's lifelong fascination with comic books. His heroes didn't wear flashy colors, and the movie's twist was that the main character's were in fact the stereotypical hero and villain. The movie didn't quite break $100 million at the box office. It might have been bad timing as the first X-men movie had killed during the summer, and maybe moviegoers weren't looking for an offbeat, darker comic book movie.

For Signs, M Night. traded in John McClane for Martin Riggs, and regained his mojo with a $227 million rake. His alien invasion spooker, was well structured. I still maintain that the first reveal of the alien through the news footage is one of the best "recoil" moments in any film this decade. Then the twist truly ruined the film for me. Shyamalan nicked the alien's weakness from H.G Wells, and he made it even more absurd. How do those aliens choose to land on a planet covered with a the very substance that is deadly to them. YAWN! Talk about deflating the suspense.

The trailers for 2004's The Village, didn't inspire very much confidence. I vowed to not watch the film's due to the trailer's pandering to a horror movie's lowest common denominator. I was thus perplexed when my best friend insisted I give the film chance, giving it a must-see label. I entered the theater highly skeptical, and needless to say I was floored by what transpired.

After three films with pronounced twists, one can't watch his films without trying to unravel the mystery before the "big reveal" So I immediately went for M. Night's "dummy twist" proclaiming out loud in the theater "The monster's aren't real!" So as my guard was then lower I was completely blindsided by the real twist, that the film was in fact not a period piece, but a support group of those who had lost loved ones to crimes of passion, had fashioned an isolated community to attempt to escape from the evil that permeates our society today. I remember hearing people scoff at the idea of people foregoing the comforts of modern technology to live in a agrarian society, but I was fairly impressed by the message that even in a simple society you cannot escape man's inherent desire to harm one another to obtain that which they can't.

Oh and I developed an unhealthy fixation on Bryce Dallas Howard, the first in a long line of movie star and musician redheads, that I pine after still.

It was Howard's involvement in Lady in the Water, that ultimately disappointed me the most. Easily the worst of M. Night's canon. I was really disappointed that Howard would agree to star in such a horrible film. I honestly couldn't finish The Lady in the Water. It was the first movie of Shyamalan's to truly fail at the box office, only netting $44 million domestically despite a $75 million budget. Shyamalan had enjoyed a budget around that size since his breakout hit, but the Lady fiasco knocked him down peg, and this summer's the Happening was made for $57 million.

Now for the main event. The Happening is a meticulously structured paranoia thiller, with impressive notes of cringe-inducing horror, and mild comedic beats. The movie is really just meat and potatoes, which some will slam as over simplified, but to me is merely concise and effective.

The movie opens with the scores of people in Central Park suddenly stopping what they are doing, and deciding to end their own lives by whatever means they can. The news outlets in the film identify that toxin was introduced that flips the inhibitor in the brain that controls our human predication for self preservation. The toxin is suggested as a terrorist attack, leading those in major cities to evacuate. This is no "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" rip-off. Those exposed to the toxin are only a threat to one person: themselves. An enemy you can't see or defend against is nothing new, but one who turns you on yourself is a fresh take for sure.

The plot then follows race of a few people to avoid this toxin as best they can. The two leads are a recently married couple, Elliott and Alma. Elliot (Wahlberg) is a high school science teacher, a hopeless romantic, who may have married Alma (Deschanel) hastily. Also in their group is Elliott's co-worker Julian (Leguizamo) and his young daughter Jess (Ashlyn Sanchez). Julian leaves Jess with Alma and Elliott to go after his wife, who had made her way to a different town than their group.

It becomes based on the patterns of the toxin's release, that terrorists aren't behind the toxin, but that plant's are the source of the toxin. The first instances occurred in parks, and they are only occurring in the northeast United States, where there is the highest concentration of nuclear power plants. Thus this M, Night twist seems to have a very political theme: Human beings are polluting their planet to such a degree that plants have evolved in response and are sic-ing humans on themselves to even the playing field. It is suggested that the plants' are triggered by groups of people, prompting the survivors to split into smaller and smaller groups.

This twist is partial reversal on the twist from Signs, but for better effect. Our planet is covered with flora, and therefore, if plants were ever a danger to us, how could we escape their wrath. Mind you this a more elegant version that killer plants. The film does not contain.garish man-eating venus flytraps.

The secondary motivation that triggers the plants to release the toxin, is even more subtle and subject to much debate. It appears that anger and/ or hate is also a catalyst for the toxin's release. A small group arguing over who's in charge prompts a release, and an lone angry woman does as well. Towards the end of the film the remaining three leads: Elliot, Alma, and Jess find themselves separated in what they term to be the end of their lives. Due to their intense love for each other, which was confirmed and strengthened in their flight from this epidemic, they choose to face danger head on, to be together in their final moments. It is at this moment that the episode ends. One can be led to believe that they were simply fortunate that it ended, or one could argue that their love actually prompted these plants to "stand down." These three had abandoned their fear of death, dismantling the efficacy of the plant's toxin.

Thus the strategy of dispersing this toxin reveals its true genius. Facing an unidentifiable and seemingly inescapable foe, those in the line of fire would be hard pressed to feel anything but fear and despair, and even anger at their own helplessness. And they therefore will forever be the best targets.

Peeling back these layers of narrative construction like an onion, further reinforce my appreciation for this film. The acting was fair to middling. However scenes like one where Elliott pleads with a potted plant to not kill him only to find out the plant was plastic redeem the weaker ones.

James Newton Howard's score is Oscar-worthy, as is generally the case.

Overall my faith in M. Night Shyamalan is restored for the time being. He's prone to a make a misstep or two, so a film of this caliber doesn't not completely absolve him for Lady in the Water, but he's certainly out of the dog house. The film is not a homerun, but is most certainly a triple, which are generally harder to come by.