The Happening

(M Night Shyamalan):

Mark Wahlberg, Zooey Deschanel, John Leguizamo, Ashlyn Sanchez, Betty Buckley

Running time: 91 minutes. ★★

America's genteel northeast region is under attack. People are stopping in their tracks and committing mass suicide. Whatever is causing it, it starts off in parks and seems to spread on the wind. Could it be a terrorist attack?

I began to wonder if it was a Republican party plot to wipe out this sturdy Democratic stronghold. Mark Wahlberg's Elliot Moore believes it is something else. He is a frowning science teacher who goes on the run with his wife Alma (Zooey Deschanel) and their friend's daughter Jess (Ashlyn Sanchez).

M Night Shyamalan's latest film is an apocalyptic horror with a fair squirt of black humour. It is difficult to take seriously. You can admire very much a director who favours suggestion over revelation. But the film plays like an expensive retro-version of a 1950s sci-fi B-movie: tacky ideas and hammy acting.

The cables of disbelief are snapped by a tone that fluctuates between silly and sombre, never achieving that perfect Hitchcock balance. Things aren't helped by Zooey Deschanel who is deadpan at all the wrong times. The look of her eyes is that of somebody who is in on a big joke. Is it a big joke?

Priceless

(Pierre Salvadori):

Audrey Tautou, Gad Elmaleh.

Running time: 104 minutes.

★★★

Audrey Tautou stars in this French romantic comedy. She plays Irene, a loathsome gold-digger who spends her time on the Riviera bedding superannuated millionaires in exchange for use of their credit card.

Technically, this makes her a prostitute, but the story isn't having that. Neither is hotel bartender Jean (Gad Elmaleh) who sees only her good side, especially when she mistakes him for a tycoon and beds him too.

He spends the rest of the film trying to win her back by playing her at her own game, securing the patronage of a splashy older widow. They are quite the amoral pair: Tautou gambols about like Bambi in high heels, while Elmaleh has the befuddled look of walloped cod. Somewhere in the script is the suggestion she is falling for him, but it never lights the screen. Director Pierre Salvadori keeps the affair amiable: a few laughs here, a lot of predictability there. What a pity he is not interested in finding why Irene behaves like this. The film's publicity labels it the Breakfast at Tiffany's of this generation. But underneath all that frolicking, Audrey Hepburn signalled very clearly girl-in-distress; Audrey Tautou, displaying no interior motivation or vulnerability, seems capable only of signalling one thing: girl in nice dress.

In Search Of A Midnight Kiss

(Alex Holdridge):

Scoot McNairy, Sara Simmonds, Brian Matthew Maguire.

Running time: 90 minutes. ★★★

Here's a lo-fi refreshment that hits the spot like tangy, homemade lemonade. Alex Holdrdige's indie film, shot in handheld black and white, looks like it was made on his lunch money. His script tells a familiar story: Wilson (played by the wonderfully named Scoot McNairy) is a depressed, penniless writer, who finds himself on the morning of new year's eve trying to shut the door on the worst year of his life.

His pal suggests he put an ad up on Craig's List. It's hardly up when the phone rings: Vivian (Sara Simmonds), a spitfire neurotic and wannabe actress, arranges to meet him at 4pm but warns him she ain't going to put out. Instead, they go walking around the tatty, romantic sights of Los Angeles, falling gently under each other's spell, while reliving that familiar feeling of being in a Richard Linklater movie, notably Before Sunrise and Before Sunset.

Still, it is not a put-off. Scoot McNairy and Sara Simmonds are quite the high-strung pair: many of the gags have the flavor of vintage Woody Allen. While the film's tone is spot on, capturing realistically the disenchantment of failed romance.