I see dull people. (Spoilers follow.) If I had known that the rumors about Manoj “Night” Shyamalan’s latest strenuous effort were true—that humans are compelled to kill themselves as a warning by trees and bushes that converse about the risk to the planet’s life—I would have brought salad to throw at the screen. (If only the asshole taking notes with a penlight throughout the Tuesday screening had had the courtesy to point the beam toward the screen and draw amusing figures.) Partially financed by Indian millionaire, self-described “media entrepreneur” Ronnie Screwvala, “The Happening” isn’t. (What it is, is akin to an inane, didactic version of Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s fine, mad, tree-spirit thriller-parable “Charisma.”) The commercials indicate most of the offings, and the R-rated “red band” trailer brings them to completion, mostly omitting a gratifying scene where two annoying boys are shotgunned by hillbillies lurking inside a dark cabin. Strange suicides happen near Central Park. A woman utters “God in heaven,” and Shyamalan cuts to a medium shot of science teacher Mark Wahlberg, the words “Attributed to Einstein” chalked above his head, trying to explain the strange recent mass deaths of bees in North America. (He’s later upstaged by a plastic ficus.) His wife, Zooey Deschanel, is mute and wide-eyed over her recent grief at having committed a prehensile sort of infidelity, having shared tiramisu with a co-worker named “Joey.” Yes, “The Happening” is a comedy if you laughed as a child at the tribulations of the weak. The dialogue is wretched, even when not wrenched from context: “I’m talking about a completely superfluous bottle of cough syrup” or “We’re packing hot dogs for the road. Hot dogs get a bad rap. They’ve got a cool shape, they’ve got protein.” Shyamalan’s “twist” ending will be familiar to anyone who saw last year’s “28 Weeks Later”; its framing is weirdly suggestive of shots in “Last Year At Marienbad.” 90m. (Ray Pride)
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