Fixing the Problem | The Happening

On one of my first widely read columns, my job was to take a pre-written tip and show how it was being used in films. But on one of my first “how-to” articles posts, I blew it.

I had no idea where it went wrong. But I was writing for a big site with massive readership, and like every other writer, I had a deadline. I sent it in, and it went live. Then, it burned across the Twitterverse, before it totally burned out.

A week later, I finally found the problem: the whole thing was trash.

About 50,000 new screenplays were registered last year with the WGA. 733 were made. 1 won Best Picture. But what that’s telling you is about 49,999 scripts went out into the universe with some kind of Problem.

A scene doesn’t work. A character choice is wrong—or doesn’t happen at all. Sometimes it’s structural, way back in the outline. And sometimes… well, it goes all the way to the beginning: the idea.

Mark Wahlburg fears a plant. “The Happening” (2008) Screenwriter: M. Night Shyamalan

The Happening (2008)

Yes, I know it’s easy to dog on M. Night. If he didn’t want the criticism, maybe he shouldn’t have given us one of AFI’s 100 Greatest Films. I’m sure Shyamalam himself (along with his producers) wishes he could recreate The Sixth Sense success. But The Happening… it just has problems. And just like my stupid blog article, there’s one problem that rises above them all.

The Concept Problem

Originally called The Green Effect in his 2007 draft, this film had a freight train of momentum behind it. A solid cast. Fantastic trailer.

This exchange:

This was supposed to be the next great M. Night film. Forget about The Village. This has entire towns dying off. Mass suicides by lawnmowers. Walking into the theater was set up to be an event in of itself. So with audiences reeling, with minds wondering, with imaginations flowing. Is this a film about a global conspiracy? Or chemical warfare? Some kind of psychological thriller??

Nope. It’s plants.

…

… oh.

Problem #1

We’re afraid of… Plants?

Can we talk for a minute about a film’s main conflict? There’s the Hero—the Protagonist. The one who who has a goal. And there’s the Villain—the Antagonist. The thing that stands in the Hero’s way. In The Happening, Elliot is our Hero. He wants to live, happily with his wife, Alma. And what stands in his way? Plants.

Imagine this scenario: Elliot wants to live. The plants are killing people. A reasonable course of action? Fight the plants. Burn the fuckers to the ground. (I know. Roll with me for a sec.)

Elliot and his fellow citizens storm the nearest Home Depot and stock up on every gas mask, plant killer, sharp tool, and flame thrower they can find. They immediately cross through the entire country, sending out the message to kill your plants. Forests are set on fire; houseplants are thrown down garbage disposals. Citizens, no, HUMAN BEINGS, enraged, tear up their gardens, drop bombs on city parks, and save humanity from the death grip of greenery.

Sure, the plants would always re-grow, but human kind would find a way to kill plants from their source: the root. They’d zap the roots of any and every plant to ensure that the Human Beings of the world would be safe… always. The President would stand on the steps in front of the paved over Great Lawn and say, “Today is our Independence Day!”

I’d actually watch that film. Why not? Inanimate objects rock as villains. The Blob is film history, while Terminator and Terminator 2 are a couple of the highest grossing films ever.

But that object has to move the character to the end of his journey. That object has to actively stand in the Hero’s way. Think of the T-1000 going after John Connor. Think of Lotso locking up Woody and the Gang. These are cool villains. And why are villains are so much cooler than the heroes? Because they are dead set on stopping the Hero. .

And then you have plants.

Passively aggressive, chemical releasing plants. And it’s not all plants. It’s just plants that you piss off. And the plants don’t kill you, either. They encourage you to kill youself.

The Terminator, they’re not. And Elliot, sensing that the plants are standing in the way of a long and happy life with his wife, has to make a decision. Will Elliot stay and fight the killer planted fern in his kitchen to survive? What will give him success? What will take Elliot to the end of his journey? In the height of terror, Elliot makes the key decision to… run away.

Problem #2

Characters do what now?

Standard story narrative: the hero must fight to the ends of the earth to achieve his goal.

Wahlburg runs from it.

What’s so brave about that? He drives away from a breeze in a car. He races away from city parks on a train.

When it comes to storytelling, film or not, one thing is consistent: the characters must fight. They must be brave. That’s what audiences want to see. When an antagonist blocks in the hero’s path, we want to see him fight to get around it, over it, through it. Somehow.

Where is this guy going exactly? Plants are EVERYWHERE. Why doesn’t he just go into an indoor arena in the middle of the city? Philly has a great one, surrounded by sidewalks.

Or how about taking a boat into the middle of the ocean where there are no plants to be found, only water, fresh air, and, therefore, safety? No. Ah ha! That could work!

But alas, no. They run right into the middle of a field, lush and green, and deadly. At which point, we, the audience, see that not only is our Hero against a passive-aggressive inanimate object, but he’s an f’ing an idiot.

Problem #3

The Final Battle…er… waiting.

McKee calls it “the crowning major reversal, full of meaning.” Lajos Egri in The Art of Dramatic Writing says it’s “the culminating point. [In which] things will change one way or the other.” It’s such a major plot point, the big moment in every single film. Here’s the one reason we actually go to the movies. And what climax can we expect from The Happening?

Page 97:

ALMA
We just have to wait here. Pray it stops.

Writers, take note: If you’re somewhere in the middle of your third act, all of your stories come to a crisis point, and your character makes the decision to wait and “pray it stops”… go ahead and burn that page. Time to start over.

Shyamalan writes his main characters into the vast openness of a green valley, giving them nothing to do but run, and wait.

And I have nothing against praying, but it’s not exactly visual. It’s not exactly filmable. It’s not exactly taking your audience along for the ride. It’s personal. It’s something you do inside. And…

Okay, let me get this straight. A man’s marriage is in trouble. Plants start passive-aggressively making people kill themselves. So the man and his and his wife run into the middle of a farm, where they pray for it to end. And then, it ends.

That’s a problem.

Are there exceptions to the rule? Like anything, of course. At the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark, Indiana Jones and Merriam close their eyes and pray after the Germans open the ark. However, around them, spirits fly through the tomb and melt people’s faces off. It’s visual. It’s memorable. It’s cool. And to be fair, they’re fighting not to look at the beauty of God.

Six production companies spent $48 million to make The Happening happen. IMDB lists 11 producers. With that much money behind it and that many people, it’s wild there are that many problems. And it goes to show that scripts with major problems do get made. Articles with problems do get posted.

As an ex-pro script reader, I can tell you that 9 times out of 10, screenplays with conceptual problems—which is what’s happening in The Happening—are the first to see the trash. If I were to pick up The Happening screenplay off of the slush pile, I’d write a pass report the moment that I saw the antagonists were plants. Or that the Hero made the decision to run away. Or at least by the moment I read that the main climactic battle was… to wait.

It’s lazy writing. And we know that Shyamalan knows it, he’s spent the last 15 years defending it. He’s called it everything from a hit to a B movie to a farce. But all it is is a bad idea with $48 million dollars behind it. Can it actually be fixed? Yes. By writing a different movie.

Remember, you’re not M. Night Shayamalan. He can get movies financed and made because of his early success. He has the luxury to try things out. But you don’t have that luxury. You must be better than him. Much better.

So send your loglines to everyone. Ask if they’d be interested in the story. Tell your friends your outline over dinner. Stage a reading. Put your script down for a few weeks. Come back to it fresh, and kill your darlings. Edit. Cut. Streamline.

But if your script is a dud? If your concept is bad? If your villain is passive? If your climax is waiting in a field of green? Don’t be afraid to burn it and start over.

You’re a writer. This is what you do, because you wouldn’t be happy doing anything else. “The first draft of anything is shit,” Hemingway said. And who better to learn from than him?

An earlier version of this article appeared originally at TheScriptLab.com