The Theme

As mentioned in the Summary, this movie takes the Unknown Unknowns mantra of Rumsfeld HAL [with GW Bush as the Monolith] and has a bit of fun with it by putting J Doe in the path of TERROR [aka Horror].  Or as FF Coppola has Kurtz say in Apocalypse Now "Horror has a face and you must make friends with horror or it will become your enemy".

Here is Otto's Notebook entry on Unknown Unknowns

As the world tried to point out to J Doe with War in Iraq, it is totally dumb to start a war based on something you "don't know that you don't know", but if J Doe WANTS a war then HAL will always GIVE him a war, despite his usual demands [as we see in this movie] that he MUST be given an explanation for everything [especially if it is making you kill yourself].

So first bit of cunning of M Night S is the top text on blackboard, ie about bees and "attributed to Einstein", to confuse it with the other better known [and more applicable] "attributed to Einstein" which is:

"Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former."
- Albert Einstein (1879 - 1955)

Then, under the bees quote is the APPLICABLE quote for the movie, but teacher never gets to it as the PROBLEM starts before the explanation.  That quote is:

"On glossy wires artistically bent,
He draws himself up to his full extent,
His natty wings with self-assurance perk.
His stinging quarters menacingly work.
Poor egotist, he has no way of knowing
But he's as good as anybody going."

We are then shown how J Doe the egotist reacts [badly] once things go wrong, ending up with an Einstein facsimile on TV warning that J Doe has been GIVEN  a warning but TV anchor convinces J Doe it is "business as normal"

Summary

The Happening is yet another movie by M Night S that attempts to get J Doe to come out of his Apathy Closet and THINK about things he SHOULD be thinking about [and not about how well his IPad flips from portrait to landscape mode].  That is to say we are talking to Mick Jagger Syndrome

In The Happening M Night S is examining what Americans refer to as TEOTWAWKI and the psychology that goes with all "over-prepping about Unknown Unknowns" on the one hand or "denial" on the other.  So he presents a scenario where the Earth is revolting [via the plants in a "Day of the Triffids" type scenario] and trying to save itself by taking action.

As a shock tactic to try to break J Doe out of his apathy he "majorly" speeds the whole deal up so that "cause and effect" events that might take 10 years or even 100 years to cycle, happen in an instant.

What this does is essentially replicate the "TV War" of Vietnan, or 9/11 on TV scenario where the audience is essentially looking at themselves, and wondering what they would do in that situation.  Further, he sets the stage of this whole Happening being a Science Experiment by the clever juxtaposition of the hero from classroom teacher to "up to his ears in it".

I will explain my own thoughts on these many clever sequences in individual posts.