You will no doubt recall the theatrical trailer for M. Night
Shyamalan's The Happening boasting, without a hint of sarcasm, that the world was about to receive Mr.
Shyamalan's "first R-rated film."
I remember thinking quite clearly, "uh oh."
I've been blessed in many ways in my life. The Ann Arbor public library, for instance, carries many films I would never pay to see in the theatre despite a lingering, minuscule desire to engage in cinematic surveying. Mind you,
The Happening was not such a movie. But the odds of watching a crap-
tastic film at home increase substantially when one is married.
To begin with, no plot structure should ever be built around an
effeminate,
sensitive Mark
Whalberg. Once engaged, however, all I came to expect from this piece of junk was an explanation of sorts. The "reveal" is as old a concept as the mystery genre itself. If there is some indecipherable, extraordinary event - a happening, if you will - the most terrifyingly poor writing and acting can be forgiven if, and only if, the mysterious
phenomenon is untangled and explained. In
The Happening, the phantom menace* simply
disappears without a trace, only to reappear in (thank God) France, in order to terrorize those cheese eating surrender monkeys.**
I suppose, in the end, this was the edginess Mr.
Shyamalan was looking for. The audacity of leaving an audience without an answer having built a career of plot twists and surprise endings. But who cares? The question wasn't even worth asking.
Turns out the "R" stands for reeking, like a mackeral in the moonlight.
*Some of my more witty followers may have realized this reference serves as an homage to another feature in my crap-tastic series of films.
**Ironically***, The Simpsons has remained, on the whole, a delightful program, despite peaking on March 11, 1993 with the premiere of the finest Simpsons episode of all time, "Last Exit To Springfield."
***Not ironically.
