A wonderfully engaging “what if” suspense film. Made with the typical elegance of writer/director/producer Shyamalan, this is a surprisingly cerebral movie to kick out in the middle of the summer movie season.

Writing: Shyamalan is most notorious for his twist endings, which I think is actually a side effect of his real intentions in making films. He probably got a bit trapped into coming through with them once it became something of a trademark. I would assume that the initial driving force of his scripts is the question “what if?” In a number of cases where one asks that question, a natural outcome is a story-shifting twist ending. This movie comes at it from another angle. This angle is more obvious in some ways, and actually more subtle in others. Make no mistake, the central preconceptions of the film are audacious, but surprisingly uninterested in the supernatural. Peppered throughout the lofty idea of the primary plot is a string of oddly eccentric characters and ideas. I found them to be fascinating ideas and characters, but I know full well that the audience was extremely divided on this one. Be it the main plot or the little details, I was fascinated to listen to some of the conversations as the (nearly full) audience left the theater. This is one of those movies that divides opinion to polar opposite viewpoints. Not entirely surprising was the breakdown in demographics of the arguments. For the most part, the moronic, ADD-addled modern teen could do little more than mock everything about the film, and the more mature of folks were reading interesting angles into it. Though I will point out that there was one group of 5-6 teens (I’d guess to be around 15-16, a mix of male and female) a couple rows in front of me that had the most intelligent of comments and discussion as they sat through the credits (I always sit through credits). I was very impressed to hear their discussions. So it’s true that not every 15-16 year old is a slasher-loving neophyte. Personally, I was happy to go along with the “what if” notion of the plot, and actually find it a rather amusing idea. It must have been one heck of a pitch to the studios to get made, particularly after the box-office stumble of Shyamalan’s previous film, Lady In The Water (which I moderately liked, but consider his weakest movie). The easiest comparison to make for this film is probably to say it could easily be an episode of The Twilight Zone. I’m sure this movie will have a great many naysayers, critics and audience alike, but I’ll be happy to be one of its fans.

Production: There are a great many sequences in this film that are absolutely gorgeous. In the modern hand-held-obsessed, fast edit film world, it’s fantastic to see somebody with Shyamalan’s sense of composure and rhythm still working his magic. He’s often compared to Hitchcock (and is a self-admitted fanatic). Frankly, of his films to date, I’d think of The Happening as the most likely to have been directed by Hitchcock himself if here were making films in this era. A fair amount has been made of this being Shyamalan’s first R-rated movie. As he himself admits, it really needed to be R-rated. It earns that rating through pretty much violence alone. The casualness of the acts of violence need to be explicit to make their impact work for the story and suspense, and I totally agree. I’m always impressed by the rarity that is an R-rated movie with little-to-no language. This is just such a film. If memory serves, there’s only one small scene with a few mild language uses. For that feat alone, I commend him. As far as the rest of the production goes, I have nothing but praise. The cinematography is beautiful. Production design and location scouting are great. Editing is silk-smooth and great at building the suspense. An all-around fantastic production.

Cast: Mark Wahlberg may not be the greatest actor ever, but I usually enjoy his performances. He comes through just fine as the charming, likable, every-man protagonist for this story. Zooey Deschanel is one of my favorite actresses, and this features another great performance from her. In fact, it’s an interestingly restrained performance, but one with a great, subtle depth. Wahlberg and Deschanel fire on oddly engaging on-screen chemistry. It really works well (for me, anyway). This isn’t much of an ensemble cast, as Wahlberg & Deschanel are the key players. Young Ashlyn Sanchez is the only other cast member that probably comes close to the same amount of screen time, and she does a nice job. John Leguizamo does a nice job as well. Also featured are brief appearances by the great Alan Ruck (VERY brief appearance) and Spencer Breslin (who I didn’t realize was the actor playing the role cause, wow, did he suddenly get older).

Music: If there’s any justice in this world, the director/composer team of M. Night Shyamalan and James Newton Howard will never be split up. These two are so completely in tune with each other that it would be a crime to separate them. As always, Howard comes through with a spectacularly gorgeous score. Like many of his previous scores for Shyamalan’s films, this one features the piano quite predominantly (and uses a nice thematic approach to scoring the ethereal villain of the story). It also features some very nice cello work, credited to soloist Maya Beiser. Overall, a beautiful score. Not the greatest one he’s done for Shyamalan (which would be The Village, followed by Signs), but it’s still a great score.

This entry was posted on Friday, June 13th, 2008 at 10:59 pm and is filed under Movie Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.