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By Felix Vasquez Jr. | M. Night Shyamalan's returns with his first R rated film, The Happening.
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Apologist. Fan. Cheerleader. Advocate. Whatever you want to call me, I'm still one of the few movie lovers who continue to defend M. Night Shyamalan to this day and watch every one of his films religiously. Does he have his faults? What director doesn’t? Is he an egomaniac? Sure. Is he delusional in some respects? Of course. Has he made bad movies? Definitely. A few.
Should he continue apologizing to us? No way, buster!
Especially not for "The Happening," a horror film that's received nothing but scathing reviews from a crowd of movie critics who simply don't get what he pulled off on film. Or at least, from a crowd of critics who don't want to get what he pulled off on film. After watching it and being completely overwhelmed by the story he had to tell movie audiences, my faithfulness to Shyamalan continues unwavered.
The man has been a very under appreciated director after "The Sixth Sense" and is still considered a one trick pony. The summation of the artist isn't completely off but sadly it's very much on its head. Shyamalan wasn't a one trick pony, it's just that he debuted much too strongly for audiences to accept anything other than yet another gut punch. He’s simply a magician who opened with a big trick and couldn’t quite match up to the opener in spite of his best efforts.
No two Shyamalan movies have been alike beyond the twist endings, but Shyamalan has had justified meaningful messages at the end of every one of his films that are powerful and most times truthful. "The Village" was about a small powerful government keeping their citizens xenophobic, ready for war, and in perpetual fear and hysteria by inventing a menace that was completely undefined. If you can't connect the dots there, then you really don't understand what Shyamalan is.
And now there is "The Happening," a brutally horrific apocalyptic thriller that pleads with man kind to heed the warning signs of our planet before it's too late. With his thriller Shyamalan uses his R rating to his advantage to explore the self-mutilation of man kind at the mercy of an ambiguous threat that travels through the winds to extinguish us, all the while providing commentary about our dying planet, and the wrath of Mother Nature. More so, his film presents a logic that leaves the line between fiction and reality thinly spread apart.
Upon discovering I loved "The Happening," a good friend of mine responded with "Well this is the summer movie season audiences don't want to be pleaded with." It was an irritating comment only because... he was right. He was very right. And Shyamalan may sadly end up being punished for aiming to completely undermine the explosive event fare that the summer brings upon us. In all the superhero movies and big romance comedies, Shyamalan's horror thriller is a subtle and poetic look at what happens when a traditionally docile planetary organism decides to turn on us and snuff the species out once and for all.
Like "The Birds," Shyamalan strives for a Mother Nature revenge film that's seemingly random in violence, and mixes the various story elements of dark humor, completely stern horror, and the notion that this completely inexplicable epidemic may mean the end of all civilization as we know it. And only a few of the characters in the story ever actually want to admit it, while everyone else is convinced that these series of suicides are the result of menacing terrorism. When that's debunked, the survivors in the arc continue attempting to introduce some explanation, all of which continue to be disproved when the menace that brushes across the land in a howling wind continues changing every incident.
I'll be the first to admit though that Shyamalan is not perfect. He's delusional, egomaniacal, and tends to push his religious views in to every one of his films, with "Signs" being his testament to the power of family surviving under the strength of their beliefs in God, while "The Happening" attempts not only to preach about our destruction of the planet, but also present the possibility (at one instance) that God or some hellish force is behind this epidemic. All themes that go either ignored for the sake of enjoyment or smashed endlessly.
"Lady in the Water" is also Shyamalan in a nut shell. It's self-important, smug, self-deifying, and presents the pretense that it's holier than thou. Shyamalan's fantasy thriller had every chance to be quite incredible, and even after repeated viewings it's still just M. Night patting himself on the back and ignoring every good sense the studios had to alter this to where it could be almost watchable. And again it's a story that pushes M. Night's own views on religion. It's a story about the power of community committing to something higher than themselves to form a bond.
While the themes are potential for a masterpiece, on screen it's all just a flat masturbatory exercise.
But personally, I think Shyamalan's apologized enough to fans and critics the world over. That film came out years ago and continues to follow him around. The argument is old. The reasoning is tired, and Shyamalan deserves another chance. And in spite of what many may think, I'm convinced that "The Happening" is a return to grace for the man who continues to be a wonderful storyteller, an even better director, and a master at pushing a subtle message that not many people often get. In reviews for his films, I see too many superficial observations and no one is ever willing to look under the sheet to see if M. Night has something deeper to say.
Because he often does. And that's why I'm continuing my stint as a hardcore fan even in spite of the barbs and insults being thrown my way. Because he's too good of a storyteller to just throw by the wayside especially when movie audiences continue to give chance after chance to the likes of Michael Bay, and Eli Roth.
Check out more of Felix's work at Cinema-Crazed.com
