Built on Facts

Last Friday I saw M. Night Shyamalan’s film The Happening. (Don’t worry, no real spoilers follow.) Science types will squirm during a few parts. There’s really very few physics issues to complain about, but the biologists and biochemists will blow a gasket. I wouldn’t worry about it too much - it’s a horror film, and suspension of disbelief is not strained too badly within the internal universe of the film which is really all we can ask in this genre.

I’ll leave the fun dissecting the biology errors to the biology sites (Popular Mechanics has a good article already). Suffice it to say that evolution doesn’t have motives and act suddenly with malice aforethought. And plants don’t work that way anyway. And survival adaptations don’t even come close to working that way either.

Well, I’ll mention my one physics quibble. A character is hit in the chest with a shotgun blast at a range of about one foot. The buckshot pattern on his chest is probably a foot in diameter. Shotguns do not spread like that. At a range of one foot the pattern of buckshot wouldn’t really be all that much bigger than the opening of the barrel. If it were as portrayed on film, the weapon would be essentially useless at ranges of above a yard, which is clearly not the case.

There’s a few philosophy and politics of science issues. You’ll see them. It’s not a subtle film. The old tropes that “Scientists Are Not Omniscient” and “There Are Mysteries Beyond Our Understanding” get taken out for a spin. The first is true and the second is probably true, but it’s also true that it’s possible to type with your toes. After all, science isn’t good at everything but it’s very good at the sort of thing found in the movie. The phenomenon at issue in the film (were it possible, which it’s not) would be thoroughly characterized and counteracted faster than you can say DARPA funding. After all, plant biology is complicated but it’s not nearly an Unsolvable Mystery. The possible larger implication that Humanity Needs To Go is a bit troubling. The New Republic calls that implication The Most Morally Abhorrent Movie Ever Made, but that’s just silly. The TNR reviewer believes that one particular scene juxtaposing of pregnancy with death means Shyamalan thinks new human life is environmentally evil. I think the point is the much simpler idea that a horror film is supposed to frighten, and new life facing death is frightening. It’s a summer scary movie and should be taken nearly that seriously regardless.

All told, I thought it was a much stronger effort than his previous two films. For film quality, I give it a solid B and recommend it as a fun and creepily atmospheric exploration of one of the more horrifying scenarios contemplated on the big screen. Just don’t think too hard about it, draw moral lessons from it, or expect it to be a critical favorite.