The Happening (Review)
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! ! ! ! SPOILER ALERT ! ! ! !
** NOTICE: DO NOT READ THIS IF YOU DON’T WANT TO KNOW DETAILS ABOUT THE MOVIE! **
I checked out the latest M. Night Shyamalan flick tonight… The Happening.
Several friends and relatives had already seen it, and the reviews were extremely mixed.
Because of this, I went in with a fairly open mind. I’ve been a fan of his work (for the most part), but it seemed like the general consensus on this one was far less enthusiastic.
Regardless… here’s my take:
So, the whole thing is basically about some kind of airborne virus, or toxin, or something that is releasing in parks and high vegetation type areas near New York and Pennsylvania. It starts first in Central Park and then moves in from the coast. Originally, reports state that it is some sort of terrorist attack and all of the analysts are trying to explain the phenomenon that causes everyone who comes in contact with it to become disoriented and then driven to kill themselves.
In most previous Shyamalan films, you are constantly watching for clues throughout the movie because you just “know” there will be some sort of awesome twist at the end that makes you want to immediately go back and re-watch scenes of the movie to see if you can catch the little Easter eggs that you missed… or didn’t quite put together in the first place.
Unfortunately, this movie doesn’t work that way. There is no big twist at the end, and I think that’s where most people’s complaints have stemmed from. I was OK with that. Sure, I wanted to be fooled just like I was in “The Sixth Sense”, “Unbreakable”, “The Village”, etc…. but I wasn’t… and honestly… It doesn’t bother me much. “Signs” didn’t have much of a twist… and I loved it. “The Lady in the Water” had no major twist that I remember (maybe the guy with the one big arm… but not really). That was probably my least favorite of his films, but you see what I’m saying.
What the movie does do is create dialogue between all of the viewers about what it is that causes the people to act the way they do. Equally, what causes the main characters Mark Wahlberg and Zooey Deschanel (who I have aabsolutely adored since “Almost Famous”). 
to be able to survive (<—— spoiler! They don’t die). It’s the Cloverfield effect. You just don’t have enough information to accurately sort it all out… and that’s ok with me.
Here’s what I’ve come up with:
If you pay attention (and we all try our best during Shyamalan’s films) you’ll notice that this phenomena only took place in a part of the country that contained a higher number of nuclear and government facilities. One of the “experts” in the movie made a statement to this fact. Your first thought is that some kind of government experiment had gone wrong (also eluded to in the film) and that a secret chemical agent had been spilled in to the air, consequently killing off mass amounts of people… all by their own doing.
This may be partially true, but I don’t think it’s an experiment or chemical weapon that has gone terribly wrong!
I do think the nuclear power plants and similar facilities played a role in the whole thing though.
In addition, one of the main characters in the movie was some kind of plant expert who seemed to believe that it was something the trees, bushes, grass, etc was doing to everyone. He explained that when a certain type of plant is being eaten by a worm, it has the unique ability to change it’s chemistry vary rapidly and create a new odor that attracts a specific type of wasp (or other bug) that will come and eat the worm… thereby protecting and saving itself. He went on to say that plants have the ability to read energy levels and emotional patterns from people… and that talking to them had shown proven positive and negative signs, depending on the energy produced by the person speaking to the plant.
So, here’s my theory:
The plants are creating a toxin or chemical and releasing it in to the air. The reason it is doing this is to protect itself (or the planet) due to a type of global warming (or global harming) effect that is obviously heightened in that part of the country. This toxin has the ability to act quickly on people who are exuding anger, fear, panic, pain… and any other emotion that you might feel when everyone around you starts killing themselves for no apparent reason. It’s not released because of these emotions, but definitely seems stronger around those type of energy levels. The toxin either gets stronger or is released more rapidly when groups of people get together to form larger groups (of the negative energy). In the movie, it was pointed out that it was mostly happening in larger populations, and then slowly moved towards less populated areas. The characters also noticed that even splitting up in to small groups and heading off in different directions seemed to buy them time.
So, that’s my theory. It’s a toxin or chemical created and released by the plants to protect them. It’s mother nature’s way of saying “STOP IT PLEASE… or die”.
Why did Marky Mark and the beautiful Zooey survive?
Here’s my theory on that:
There is a repeating object in the movie… the mood ring. It was an important object that he grabbed when he was packing to leave the city. Wahlberg’s character gives it to the little girl (Jess) early in the movie when they get off the train and haven’t heard from her mother in a while. He did it to help cheer the girl up. Another character thought it was “cool” and wanted to see it. After letting the kid look at it for a second, Whalberg asked for it back and said “It’s not a toy, that ring means a lot to me.” Later you find out, it was a ring that he had bought Zooey’s character on their first date, and told her that it was red… and that meant that she was in love. She quickly corrected him and said that later they found out that Red meant she was horny.
At the very end of the movie, when it appears that they are finally going to fall victim to the toxin… somehow they make it out alive. They believe that they stayed alive just long enough to out last the spread of the chemical and the effect wore off. I however, belive that they were able to stay alive because the plants that were immediately around them didn’t let off the toxin. The reason they didn’t let off the toxin is because they were in a positive mood… from talking about the mood ring and the circumstances around it. They were happy and reminiscent about the whole thing… and I believe that the positive energy that they were putting off, kept the plants from killing them.
Anyway… that’s my take on the whole thing. I’m sure this writing is a bit scattered, but it’s late and I’m just going off the top of my head.
I enjoyed the movie and will probably see it agian when it’s out on DVD.
You definitely have to go in with the knowledge that it’s not like his other films. There is no real twist.
The only thing that I found that ties the end of the movie to the beginning is this:
In an early scene, he’s trying to get his class (he’s a science teacher) to explain why recently millions of honeybees have just disappeared…. without a trace. No one knows why. There is no sign of them dying off, or migrating, or anything. They are just gone. So he goes around and different students offer their opinions on the caues. Finally, he gets to one student, who could care less about the class, much less science… and he had the correct answer.
“Sometimes things take place in the world and nature… and they just can’t be explained!” (or something like that) 
I enjoyed it. Go see it for yourself and draw your own theories and conclusions.
