Different people want different things from a holiday movie. Some want a cozy story that’s expressly about the spirit of the holiday and what it represents. Others want to stick with their usual favorite genre, but spiced up with a holiday backdrop, whether that means a Santa-themed horror slasher, a Hanukkah comedy, or a Kwanzaa romance. For some of us, though, the perfect holiday movie is anything that unites the family for a few hours, a distraction everyone can agree on and enjoy together. So here’s my argument for M. Night Shyamalan’s 2008 disaster The Happening as the perfect uniter.
Let’s be clear: The Happening isn’t one of those “Well, it’s set during Christmas!” movies that smart-ass cinema fans keep trying to sneak into the Christmas canon, like Die Hard or Batman Returns. It isn’t even a cozy winter-wonderland movie: It’s a sunny summertime story. And it isn’t a “lost gem” that was unfairly derided in its day, then rediscovered as a cult classic. The Happening is a terrible movie. But it’s hilariously terrible — one of the best “I can’t believe they thought this was a good idea” viewing experiences of the modern era. And it’s a movie tailor-made for collective watching, for a lot of reasons.
High school science teacher Elliot (Mark Wahlberg) and his wife Alma (Zooey Deschanel) are already going through some kind of struggle as a couple even before people in New York City suddenly start killing themselves en masse, via any means available. “There appears to be an event happening,” intones one of Elliot’s co-workers, in the first of many, many awkwardly written, ponderously delivered lines. With rumors circulating that some kind of bioterrorist attack is taking place, Elliot and Alma, along with Elliot’s colleague Julian (John Leguizamo) and his 8-year-old daughter Jess (Ashlyn Sanchez), flee the city among flocks of other unnerved, displaced people, as eerie suicides take place all around them.
Admittedly, that doesn’t sound like a setup full of holiday cheer. (I’d leave smaller kids out of any family group-watch: Some of The Happening’s deaths are on the gnarly side.) But the joys of Shyamalan’s movie aren’t about the plot: They’re about the stunningly ham-fisted execution.
As the characters start to realize that the suicide-virus seems to affect people gathering in large numbers, they split into smaller and smaller groups, and heading further into the countryside. Elliot and Alma encounter a variety of strangers who respond to the lethal crisis in increasingly baffling ways — like the helpful man who delivers a breathless little impromptu speech on behalf of hot dogs. “You know, hot dogs get a bad rap. They got a cool shape, they got protein — you like hot dogs, right?” Then, with barely a pause, he rolls straight into something he apparently thought was less important to discuss: “By the way, I think I know what’s causing this.” (He’s right, if you don’t already know what’s going on, and want the spoiler.)
No one in The Happening talks or behaves like a real person, particularly Elliot and Alma. Faced with an unknown “happening” that’s killing people around them, they have the pettiest marital blowout in cinematic history, with Wahlberg delivering all his lines in a strangled semi-whisper, and Alma spending most of the movie staring at him and everything else around her with a blank, teary, yet unnervingly unblinking stare.
It turns out she committed the cardinal sin of going out for dessert with a colleague. (“We ate tiramisu together. That is it.”) As revenge, Elliot aggressively shares that he almost wasted “like, six bucks” on a “completely superfluous bottle of cough syrup” at a pharmacy because the pharmacist was attractive.
In defter hands, this exchange could be funny and disarming, a way of puncturing the tension. It seems as though Elliot is trying to convey, in a warped way, that he really doesn’t think the dessert date was a big deal, and that he’s sorry for blowing it out of proportion earlier. It’s true that danger and stress can bring buried conflicts to the surface — even small, silly ones. But none of the movie’s human drama ever feels human. In this particular instance, Wahlberg sounds bruised, proud, condescending, and constipated all at the same time, while Deschanel acts as though he’s just revealed he’s dying of cancer.
Both of these actors have been terrific in other movies and shows. Their hushed, heightened deliveries in The Happening have to have been coached by Shyamalan, who drew similar performances out of his cast in previous movies. In The Sixth Sense in particular, Haley Joel Osment’s whispery delivery perfectly fits the story, underlining that whenever he talks about his supernatural gifts, he’s sharing secrets not meant for most ears. In The Happening, the approach just makes the actors sound hoarse and ineffectual, like they’ve all been screaming with frustration between takes, and can’t sum up the voice or energy to play their roles straight.
But the script is the real problem in The Happening. The premise is unlikely, but also the kind of scientific stretch that most science fiction or horror fans would accept as the price of entry, if it weren’t explained so poorly and brought to the screen in such a goofy way. The screenplay veers back and forth between blunt, purely functional, action-driven exchanges (“Stop the vehicIe!” “What’s going on?” “Is everyone aII right?”) and desperate-sounding exposition designed to keep the audience from resisting the eventual reveal about what’s causing the suicides. (“Regarding honeybee colony collapse: “I mean, science wiII come up with some reason to put in the books, but in the end, it’II be just a theory. We wiII faiI to acknowledge that there are forces at work beyond our understanding.”)
Apart from those two poles, every other line spoken in this film is a What the hell made anyone think those words would sound right coming out of a human mouth? moment. (“Why you eyein’ my Iemon drink?”)
Here’s the thing about The Happening as a so-bad-it’s-good watch: It’s mesmerizing. It isn’t a “play it in the background while you’re doing other things” movie — the endlessly weird writing and performance choices and the staccato drama of abrupt, violent death both demand attention. And it isn’t much fun for solo viewing, either. The Happening requires a larger audience: a group of people ready to laugh together, companions in astonishment who you can exchange baffled glances with when you’re wondering, “Did Succession’s Jeremy Strong really just repeatedly shout ‘My firearm is my friend!’”, or “Are those people really trying to run away from a breeze?”
I’ve shown The Happening to groups of people on several different occasions, and it’s always a good time — the perfect experience in collective bafflement and wonder. It’s dark and grim enough to not feel entirely frivolous, and ridiculous enough to keep anyone from taking the horror elements seriously. It’s also deeply weird and highly surprising: Just when you think you’ve gotten used to the off-kilter line readings and mangled dialogue, someone will compare escaping a beleaguered city during a terrorist attack to buying a Cabbage Patch doll, or respond to a deadly threat with a shouted math problem. At the same time, the movie is a brisk 90 minutes — not too much of a commitment for a gag watch, and perfect for a veg-out break after a heavy holiday meal or a tiring family trip.
The Happening is never going to make the annals of holiday movies, or be included in roundups of feel-good year-end classics. It doesn’t have any uplifting moral moments, or cozy, comforting messages about people coming together as a community, family, or couple. But if you’re straining for something to stream for the family that won’t spark political arguments, bore half the room, or feel like every other Christmas movie clogging up the airwaves at this time of year, I heartily recommend The Happening. It’s a stupidly oddball fun time — and at least it’ll give you plenty to discuss afterward.
The Happening is streaming on Hulu and is available for rental or purchase on Amazon, Google Play, and similar digital platforms.
