castle of illusion

For the scene to work—as it does—it must pretend to be explanatory while raising more questions than it answers. What Pollack does so commandingly is create the impression that every hesitation, every smile, every gesture by Ziegler is calculated and artificial, while at the same time making him so charming and convincing that everything also feels genuine. (via The Actor’s Director as Actor by David Schwartz - Moving Image Source)

In The Happening, the idea that malevolent plants can be defeated by true love is subtext. In The Green Effect [Shyamalan’s original script], it’s just … text. At script’s climax, Mark Wahlberg’s heroic science teacher realizes that the film’s evil plants can’t kill you with their suicide-causing neurotoxins if they think you’re a good person (actual line of dialogue: “This is the final trigger, Alma! They’re weeding out our energy! They’ve become a mood ring. When they see a color they don’t like, it sets them off”). In Shyamalan’s original vision, the plants kill mean old religious fanatics, but they spare Marky Mark because he and his unfaithful wife still have a marriage worth saving