June
16
Shyamalan's The Happening Inspires Critics
M. Night Shyamalan's The Happening scored a dismal 20 % on Rotten Tomatoes; it opened decently, but critics had a field day giving the Philly filmmaker the shaft. Fox didn't screen the pic for me; they focused their efforts on a sharp marketing campaign. In this case, clearly, critics were not going to be their friend.
I'm curious to see the pic, because Shyamalan (SHA-MA-LAN) is an anomaly--a writer-director who makes an original every time out, and tunes into the beat of his own drummer, with occasionally risible results. He needs someone like Nina Jacobson, who when she was at Disney--before she gave him the feedback that led him to take Lady in the Water to Warners-- kept him on the right path.
Producer Scott Rudin worked with him once on The Village--in that case the often grandiose Shyamalan was so optimistic about that picture that he wanted Rudin to help him cast it upscale with the likes of Bill Hurt and Sigourney Weaver in hopes of landing a few Oscars.
I enjoyed The Village, while recognizing the ways that it could have been better. I've liked all of Shyamalan's films except Lady in the Water. They go off the rails in ways that could easily be tweaked at the script stage, or in the editing room. He seems to have a tin ear for where something too serious might go over the edge into unintended humor.
Shyamalan is the perfect example of the hazards of making these movies entirely on your own. Where he goes from here is another question. He needs a good producer he can trust, who will buffer him. Even the utterly independent Coen Brothers have a Rudin or Eric Fellner to interface with the studios for them.
The New Republic went out of its way to not review the movie.
Here's Variety.
MTV's Josh Horowitz twists the knife.
David Edelstein's New York Magazine review is hilarious.
Shyamalan talks to Cinematical.
UPDATE: In not surprising contrarian style, the NYT's Manohla Dargis is positive.
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