The Keanu Reeves Project - A Happening of Monumental Proprotions

A HAPPENING OF MONUMENTAL PROPORTIONS (2017) - Bob

I wrote several posts ago in my recap of "The Whole Truth" that I'm becoming worried about how I'm grading movies because I've been almost exclusively watching Keanu Reeves movies for the last five months and let's just say that a lot of them are just not very good.  In that recap I mentioned that I kind of actually enjoyed a movie that critics hated and figured that would probably be the last time that happened given the fact that I have so few movies to go and the ones that I know that still remain are pretty good.

So, I was just a tiny bit surprised when I watched "Happening" last night and genuinely enjoyed this movie that was overwhelmingly panned by critics.  I knew going into it that Keanu, despite his TOP BILLING on the IMDB page is only in it for a few minutes but at this point I figured, what the hell, and decided to just watch it anyway.  I've got nothing else to do!

"Happening" checks in at a VERY brisk 80ish minutes, so it's barely even a movie as much as it is a long episode of television.  It's also the directorial debut of Judy Greer, and as we all know, everyone loves Judy Greer.

Now, I don't know if Keanu is close personal friends with Judy Greer, but she did have a minor part in the previously reviewed and incredibly mediocre movie, "Henry's Crime," and I'm going to go ahead and assume that Judy Greer called in a personal favor to him (and others) to appear in this since he's literally only in the movie for about four minutes.  Not only that, but he comes into the movie so late (but actually much earlier if you're not an idiot like me, which I'll get to) that as the movie rapidly approached its conclusion, I started thinking he wasn't even in it at all and IMDB was lying to me.

Well, more astute viewers would notice that he actually appeared much earlier, as a voice on a phone call on at least two occasions but I didn't quite catch that.

With all of this said, "Happening" is not a great movie but even if something like 55 out of the last 57 movies I've watched weren't for this project, I think I still would have liked it!  I laughed out loud on several occasions and even though there are some weird tonal issues and loose threads that don't get wrapped up or ever take off in the first place, I actually liked this movie far more than I expected.

"Happening" plays as an ensemble comedy that features a number of people, each with their own small story that for the most part tie up together in the end.  Except not entirely, which is why this screenplay was either chopped to bits or not that great in the first place.  But no matter, because thanks to a handful of really fun comedic performances, I think this movie actually works.  Mostly.

Okay, as usual on the recaps for movies that I know for a fact you've never seen, full spoilers ahead.

The movie opens with a montage of a number of people starting their day, and you'd recognize a lot of them: Bradley Whitford as Mr. Schneedy, Allison Janney as Principal Nichols, Rob Riggle as Mr. Pendelhorn, and...what's this?  It's Common as Daniel in the de facto "starring" role making this his third appearance in the Keanu Reeves Project and second movie in a row.   

Just a quick aside: this project is giving me the impression, right or wrong, that Keanu Reeves must be personal friends with some of these seemingly random people that appear to show up in his movies time and time again for no particular reason.  Just a few of these folks include Peter Stormare (as mentioned in my last post on "John Wick Chapter 2"), Danny Hoch who also featured in "Henry's Crime," and "Exposed" despite being in almost no other films whatsoever, and, oddly enough, Cornel West who was in both Matrix sequels as well as "The Private Lives of Pippa Lee."  Not to mention Judy Greer once again.

Oh and by the way if this is somehow the first post of mine you've ready, you probably think I'm an insane person for knowing all of this stuff but please keep in mind I've watched almost 60 Keanu Reeves movies in five months.

Where was I?  Right, everyone is getting ready to start their work or school day.  Common is in the kitchen with his daughter Patricia and we learn that mom is dead and that it's a big day at school: career day.

The morning sequence concludes with Allison Janney on the school track and seeing something offscreen that makes her upset and simply say, "shit."

We also meet one of the few kids that feature regularly in the movie, Darius, who starts his morning by being dumped by another child over Facetime because they don't live in the same time zone and she's over it.  Darius apparently moves around a lot and while she doesn't seem too upset by the ordeal, Darius doesn't take it so well and it only gets worse when his nanny tells him on the way to school that she's quitting since she's also tired of moving around all the time.  

It's not me, it's you

For what it's worth, the precocious Darius actually didn't annoy me in the way I was expecting and even got one or two laughs out of me.  Like I said, this movie was surprisingly funny and what a relief given all the shit I've watched so far.

So we head over to school and learn that the thing that made Allison Janney so upset was the discovery of a dead body on school grounds - a gardener that apparently died of natural causes.  Rob Riggle shows up and the two of them agree that they can't just have a dead body waiting to greet kids in the morning so they agree to move him into the teacher's lounge and call the paramedics.  Allison Janney recognizes the gardener as 'Kevin' and there's a brief exchange that is legitimately funny where Rob Riggle is exasperated that there's not only one gardener named Kevin (implying that he was expecting the dead guy to have a Hispanic name) but there are in fact FOUR Kevins that all work for the same landscaping company and they don't know which Kevin is the one who is dead, putting a secretary in charge of calling around to figure out which dead Kevin is theirs.

We have to talk about Kevin

Meanwhile, Common is on his way to work and receives a call from a very angry man who claims to know that Common is banging his wife and wants to meet up for lunch later to discuss it but he's not sure when because he's "completely cockfucked with appointments today."  Common heads into the office where he discovers the office kitchen is cordoned off with caution tape and is quickly approached by his assistant Nadine (again played by a recognizable face, this time Jennifer Gardner) who is apparently the wife that he's been banging.  She takes him into a supply room and says that he ruined her life, which is of course bullshit.

Common tells Nadine that Bob called him and says he knows what's going on and that he wants to have lunch, and in the funniest exchange of the movie Nadine says, 

"But he's completely cockfucked with appointments today!"

And Common, who I didn't realize had any comedic timing until this very moment replied with a perfect, "Yeah, he said that.  He said that exactly, actually."

Honest to god, that was one of the funniest exchanges of any movie in the Keanu Reeves Project so far.

No coffee for you

Darius shows up to school and apparently it's his first day and he already starts getting bullied, only to be rescued by Common's daughter Patricia.  Darius immediately falls in love with her and his persistent courting of her throughout the day is one of the other less interesting storylines we follow over the duration of the movie, although again, not as annoying as I thought it would be once I saw where this was going.

Back at the office, Common and his entire department are called into an impromptu meeting, where they meet their brand new boss, Bradley Whitford, who tells everyone that someone came in over the weekend, slashed the power cord off the coffee machine (thus the caution tape) and left a note that said, "Fuck Field Publishing" along with a drawing of a dick.  Brad Whitford isn't going to stand for this shit and he decides to have building security interrogate everyone followed immediately by individual meet and greets in his new office.

The conceit of this whole plot line is relatively stupid but Bradley Whitford comes across as a real unlikable asshole, which is entirely the point.  Common goes back to his desk and has a conversation with his cube mate, telling her that he didn't do it and they have another actually funny exchange before she ruins it after he tells her about career day by actually saying something along the lines of, "career day?  Well that's a HAPPENING OF MONUMENTAL PROPORTIONS."  

Fuck movie, you were doing so well until you dropped the ENTIRE NAME OF THE MOVIE right into the scene!

Unpacking large trophies

Back at school, the paramedics show up and they are played by Nat Faxon (who co-starred with Judy Greer on a very short lived FX tv show that I also enjoyed called "Married") and...Katie Holmes.  Yes, Katie Holmes.  Katie Holmes, what are you doing in this movie?

Proof of life photo of Katie Holmes

Just one more quick aside here, but John Cho also has a very small role in the movie as the shop teacher.  It's almost not even worth mentioning except of course for his own connection to Katie Holmes:

The paramedics explain to Allison Janney and Rob Riggle that paramedics help LIVING people and that Kevin is already dead, so what they need is a coroner.  Again, mildly amusing.

Back at the office, Common is called first into interrogation with building security followed by his very awkward meet and greet with Bradley Whitford, which does not go well.  After the meeting, Common receives another phone call from Bob needing to reschedule later in the day because he's been "buttfucked by meetings all morning."  This entire running thread of Bob being sexually assaulted by appointments in various forms is actually very, very funny and got me to chuckle each time it happened.

Oh, and I haven't even gotten to the other ongoing storyline, which is about the music teacher, Mr. Mcrow, who started his day by being dumped by his wife/girlfriend and spending his school day moping sadly around school and talking to third graders about nihilism and failure.  Again, this is all very moderately funny.

Reminds me of most of my elementary school classes

Later in the day, Common gets called back into Bradley Whitford's office and after mistakenly admitting to an office affair that actually did happen, is fired for sabotaging the coffee machine, something that he definitely did not do.  Turns out that Nadine took revenge on Common for "ruining her life" (as if she wasn't 50% of the consensual affair they had) by going to Whitford along with some of her assistant friends and lying that he slashed the coffee machine.  

Common packs up his desk and heads down to human resources where he has an exit interview with Kumail Nanjiani, who once again, was another very known face with a small role in this movie.  And I should also note, this is another legitimately funny scene with the highlight being Kumail mentioning that Common's coffee pot plot was "foiled."  The meeting is briefly interrupted by Bob yet again, this time by text:

After being fired, Common still has career day to deal with so he heads over to the school while Mr. McRow climbs to the roof of the school and I started thinking to myself, please don't let this movie end in a suicide.

So Common gets to his daughter's class in time for career day, but would you believe who is also there?  Yep, it's Bradley Whitford as it turns out he's actually Darius' dad, although Darius has snuck off himself and found Mr. McRow up on the roof.

Common, bewildered, asks Bradley Whitford what the fuck he's doing at this elementary school career day and in yet another funny line, Bradley Whitford says, totally deadpan, "What, I just love career days."  Common goes up to speak to the class and gives a very inappropriate speech about how he was fired by Bradley Whitford earlier that day and after a combative exchange of words, the two of them agree to have a fistfight outside.

So everyone heads outside to watch two grown men fight each other while Mr. McRow and Darius watch from the roof.  I don't know if McRow really was going to jump or not but Darius, intentionally or not, talks him down off the ledge.  Unfortunately, as McRow starts to walk away from the ledge he slips and falls backwards (this part is actually very stupid) over the ledge but thankfully onto the pile of very soft mulch that Kevin the dead gardener had been using before he died.

Finally, a movie that doesn't make me want to jump off a roof

FIGHT!  FIGHT!  FIGHT!

At this point the movie is near over and yet, there's been no Keanu Reeves, which is when I took the note, "I don't think Keanu is actually in this movie."

Well, Common and his daughter leave for the day, but not before Common heads to a coffee shop to meet Bob, who was Keanu Reeves on the phone this entire time!  Shame on me!  Keanu, who has taken a pretty subdued yet aggressive tone to this point notices that Common's daughter is in the car and very hilariously mentions, "Smart."  After all, at several points to now he has mentioned that he may or may not want to kick Common's ass, and based on the last movie I watched, I'm guessing he could do it.

I should also note that Keanu looks like he literally stepped right off the set of "John Wick 2" to be in this movie since the character they'd been making him out to be probably would have had a cleaner look to him, but who cares, it's Keanu Reeves.

Keanu then forces Common into the men's bathroom at the coffeeshop demanding to see his dick.  He wants to compare everything: dick size, height, weight, hair color (amusing because Common is bald) and even the way they pronounce "multisyllabic words."  Again, legitimately funny and Keanu fucking kills the four minutes of this movie he is actually in.

I think we all know who has the bigger dick.  Metaphorically.  

Common starts, but then refuses to show Keanu his dick, which satisfies Keanu because he's basically like "the fact that you don't want to show it to me means it's tiny," which was also delivered perfectly.

The scene closes with them shaking hands but Keanu grabbing Common's arm at the last second and giving him an Indian burn - totally random and yet also very funny.  Common leaves the shop and gets back in the car with his daughter to drive home and the movie basically ends with the credits playing over a shot of the coroners showing up to the school to take Kevin away.

And that's the movie.  Is it perfect?  Definitely not.  It barely clocks in at 85 minutes and I don't know if that's because they chopped this thing to shreds or if there just wasn't enough material to begin with.  Some of the story arcs were definitely better than others and some of the threads aren't concluded properly or even at all.  But everyone in this movie from Allison Janney to Katie Holmes and yes especially to Keanu Reeves are actually surprisingly funny especially given how much critics hated this.  

Is my view distorted from all of the shitty movies I've watched lately?  Probably, yes.  But fuck it, this movie is still infinitely funnier than "The Prince of Pennsylvania" and "Feeling Minnesota."

Some scattered thoughts:

*Allison Janney and Rob Riggle have just one other colleague working with them to ensure the teacher's and students don't know there's a dead body in the teacher's lounge, and she's given the task of tracking down Kevin's family.  In one of the funniest one-off jokes of the movie she receives a very short phone call from someone saying "This is Kevin, is this the person calling everyone in my family telling them I'm dead?"  Funny!

*Another great line from a shockingly funny overall performance from Common is during career day when one of the students tells him that her dad says she should do whatever she loves and when Common asks what her dad does for a living and she replies that he's an accountant Common says, "and a liar.  He's an accountant AND a liar."  

*This really isn't the kind of movie to nitpick but if it's Darius' first day at school, how the hell do they know it's career day in order for Brad Whitford to show up?

*Can't mention enough how funny Kumail and Keanu are in this movie.  I wish they'd had a scene together.  

*I really hope the bad reviews of this don't kill Judy Greer's directing career, if that's something she wants to keep doing.  I actually read five or six reviews off Rotten Tomatoes and really disagreed with what most of them had to say.  I guess comedy is really not for everyone?  

Box Office Information: N/A.  This was apparently only released in about a dozen theaters and probably only ran for a weekend.  

Rotten Tomatoes: 16% Critics/58% audience score.  That critic rating is truly unfair and the audience score is far more in line with what I'd expect. 

IMDB: 4.6.  Once again, IMDB users are worthless.

My Movie Rating: You know, before I started writing this post I was ready to give it a 6.5 but after finishing this I'm bumping that up to a 7.  I laughed a bunch of times and I would recommend this movie to people who share a similar sense of humor to me.  The movie is a little inconsistent and doesn't exactly know what sort of comedy it's going for and so no, it's not perfect.  A lot of it is really dry or dark or deadpan and some of it falls completely flat.  But I probably laughed out loud more than a dozen times and that's not bad when your movie is only 85 minutes long.  Again, this isn't something I could see myself watching again anytime soon but if it happened to be on television some random night I would definitely check it out again if there was nothing else to do.

Keanu Rating: I know the chances of anyone watching this movie are slim to none but if you've been reading this project or just really like Keanu Reeves, just go find his scene in this, he's hilarious.  9.5/10.

Up Next: It's another critical failure, "Siberia."