Phénomènes

Malheureusement… la touche de réalisation de Shyamalan dans la création de tension est présente ici (maison hantée avec une effrayante dame de maison) et incite à une évaluation de 3 étoiles, mais tout le reste essentiel est absent. Le motif de l'amour ne fonctionne pas et la relation entre les protagonistes principaux est incompréhensible. Après des dialogues intéressants et un dénouement final, il ne reste aucune trace. "The Happening" est fade, parfois captivant et parfois naïf, cuisiné à l'eau et saupoudré de musique d'Howard provenant de "Signes". (09/06/2008)

Je suppose – peut-être à tort – que l’intention originale de M. Night Shyamalan était d’alléger l’atmosphère dépressive du film en écrivant des dialogues burlesques. Mais le résultat est, au contraire, une absence totale de créativité. Ce que disent les personnages manque de substance, est exprimé au mauvais moment, porte sur des inepties et sort de la bouche d’acteurs totalement non pertinents. Mark Wahlberg et, surtout, Zooey Deschanel ne sont pas à leur place dans le rôle de couple central. Quant à la fillette, qui occupe le troisième rôle et est présente pour la quasi-entièreté de la durée du film, elle est tellement inutile qu’on oublie progressivement qu’elle est là. Quand apparaît enfin l’ombre d’un personnage intéressant (le jardinier au grand cœur joué par Frank Collison) qui a quelque chose à dire dans le récit, il se met d’un coup à philosopher sur les hot-dog avant de disparaître pour de bon après deux minutes. La cerise sur le gâteau, c’est le fait que, au moment où plane la menace imminente d’une apocalypse et d’une extinction de millions d’humains, Alma (Zooey Deschanel) a pour seule et unique préoccupation le remords d’avoir trompé son mari (Wahlberg) en allant déguster des pâtisseries avec un autre homme. M’enfin ! Dans quel genre de monde cette histoire se déroule-t-elle ? (19/06/2018)

Quite fun. How much you’ll enjoy it will depend on when you give up hope of a chilling thriller to make do with a parody of catastrophe movies. I did it during the first ten minutes and I could watch the rest with a smile on my face. I don’t think there’s any other way to be satisfied, because Shyalaman simply could not mean this seriously. Or maybe he did at first, but when he realised that Wahlberg and Deschanel weren’t the right casting choices, he decided to use them differently and turn the thriller he had planned into the utmost B-movie. What takes the film down very deep are the dialogues and the way the actors utter them, otherwise it would’ve been alright, there’s even some atmosphere here and there. I really want to believe in what I’ve just written, but unfortunately, I’m not that sure. If Happening is so bad unintentionally, we are witnessing an enormous failure by a director. There’s one exchange by the end that gives me some hope that my theory is true. In the scene when Elliot is telling about the time he went to buy cough syrup. Alma: “Are you joking?” (Elliot nods in agreement). Alma: “Thanks.” (05/07/2008)

The only question I have in connection with this film relates to the budget. I’d even suspect Shyamalan of preferring to embezzle a little something into his own pocket as if he suspected that his latest venture (as is slowly becoming his habit) wouldn't even make money. But now more seriously: I was not at all disappointed because this is exactly the kind of intimate thriller I was expecting. Shyamalan plunges ordinary characters into a marginal situation that cannot be properly rationally explained, leaving them groping not only over the question of mysterious deaths but also over their own relationships. These relationships are stressed in the extreme, even if some of the dialogue suffers from "romantic B-movie" syndrome. It's not about bogeymen, it's about questions we need to start asking. PS: At times, Shyamalan and his cinematographer Fujimoto did such great work that I thought about how good it would be if he had made Cormac McCarthy’s The Road. (21/07/2008)

It’s a pity that the wind didn’t also engulf Václav Klaus, at least Shymalan's ecological agitprop would have had some useful effect. Now, seriously, Shyamalan hasn't lost his directorial skill and he can still make scenes that give you chills, but the problem here is in two things: the half-baked concept, where logic takes a vacation quite often, and then the leading duo. Mark Wahlberg, as much as I like him, is absolutely unsuited to the role of a high school biology professor and bumbling husband (Mark's pissed-off macho characters are best with a gun in his hand) and whenever he tries to play some serious emotion and speaks up, he ruins all the action on screen with his perpetually furrowed brow and unbelievable speech. Mark, sorry, this didn't work out (and now I’m afraid of Jackson's The Lovely Bones). And Zooey, that doll with big eyes, gives it an even bigger punch. So Shyamalan lost with the casting and the half-baked script, but I'm still a fan. (20/07/2008)