# The Happening (2008)

Between the script and the casting of the two lead roles, this movie was doomed before it started shooting. The dialogue is conceptually thin (mathematician only talks about science! the wife is just kinda sad about life for reasons! the scientist is always talking about variables and hypotheses!) and each line so alien that anyone would struggle with this. But wow, we see that struggle in Mark Wahlberg’s and Zooey Deschanel’s performances.

But this movie is so tonally inconsistent and so blissfully short that it’s still kind of fun to watch. It is definitely not the worst M. Night production.

My favorite moments:

• Wahlberg as the anti-science science teacher: “But whatever scientists decide is happening to bees will just be a story. Nobody can really know.” THANKS, TEACH!
• The Jeep that keeps honking for several minutes at John Leguizamo to hurry it up only to start slooooowly rolling away as he finally shows up.
• The line readings in the cafe. Man suddenly stands up and calmly announces to a strangely calm room: “We are all going to die if we stay here.” Another man, also calm and wooden: “Then we should all head west”
• Wahlberg interrupting a woman’s final call with her dying daughter to rewind the conversation back a couple of minutes: “Wait, this is happening there too?!”
• My involuntary shout “NOOOO! THE ONLY GOOD ACTOR IS LEAVING THIS MOVIE TOO EARLY” when REDACTED dies.
• I will go to my grave without knowing whether Jeremy Strong’s character was supposed to be a simpleton or whether the actor realized (correctly) that this was the only sane interpretation of the script for most characters.