Two-time Oscar nomineeMark Wahlberg(The Departed, The Fighter) has more duds than cinematic gems in his 30-year filmography. Yet, despite starring inMax Payne, Flight Risk, Infinite, Uncharted, Broken City, The Gambler, Transformers: Age of Extinction, Daddy’s Home 2,and more forgettable fare, Wahlberg insists that his worst movie is Jonathan Demme’sThe Truth About Charlie. At least, that’s whatWahlberg toldYahoo UKin an interview in 2013, well before more than half the movies listed above were made.
If polled again in 2025, Wahlberg may have a different assessment of his all-time cinematic low. Then again, Wahlberg had every opportunity to name the real worst movie of his career, M. Night Shyamalan’sThe Happening, released five years before throwingThe Truth About Charlieunder the bus. GivenCharlie’s pedigree, it’s understandable why Wahlberg was disappointed with the final result. But by every conceivable metric, there is no wayThe Truth About Charlieis as bad a movie asThe Happening.
Mark Wahlberg Thinks ‘The Truth About Charlie’ Is His Worst Movie
While promoting theforgettable crime thrillerBroken City(a 26% RT rating), Wahlberg saidThe Truth About Charliewas his worst movie. As Wahlberg tells it:
“There were a few good things about ‘The Truth About Charlie.’ I spent four months in Paris. I spent my 30th birthday in Paris. I was introduced to beautiful French cuisine, beautiful Bordeaux…and some other beautiful things in Paris.The movie just didn’t turn out the way I had hoped. I was pretty awful.”
Given the movie’s excellent source material and Oscar-worthy pedigree with Demme at the helm, it’s easy to see why Wahlberg was so disappointed by the lackluster result. The originalCharadeis a timeless classic in the romantic-comedy suspense subgenre, and Demme was one of the most gifted filmmakers of his generation.
Best Jonathan Demme Films, Ranked
Decorated director Jonathan Demme is revered for his outstanding cinematic creations including the psychological horror hit The Silence of the Lambs.
Given the opportunity to reprisea Cary Grant roleand work with Demme, whose eclectic filmography includesSomething Wild, Married to the Mob, Melvin and Howard, Rachel Getting Married, The Manchurian Candidate,and many more, Wahlberg’s feelings about one of the director’s rare missteps are completely understandable. And they also happen to be dead wrong, as Wahlberg has apparently never seenThe Happening.
‘The Happening’ Is Mark Wahlberg’s Worst Movie & It’s Not Even Close
The most risible unintentional comedy ever made,The Happening,is both M. Night Shyamalan’s and Mark Wahlberg’s worst movie, and there’s no real competition.The sci-fi thriller mystery follows high school science teacher Elliot (Wahlberg) and his wife Alma Moore (Zooey Deschanel), as they attempt to unravel why hordes of people are throwing themselves off the roofs of New York skyscrapersin what seems like mass suicides.
Believed to be the result of a bioweapon launched by terrorists, Elliot, Alma, and a group of dimwitted survivors traverse the city looking for answers, only to end up as mystified and dumbstruck as the audience watching the actors reciting the most stilted dialogue with wooden, Razzie Award-worthy performances. Indeed,The Happeningearned four Razzie nominations, including Worst Picture, Worst Actor (for Wahlberg),Worst Director (for Shyamalan), and Worst Screenplay.
The Happeningis so atrocious that it can’t even entertain as a “so-bad-it’s-good” curio to behold.It’s so bad that it’s virtually impossible to mock. By the time the main characters accuse the wind (seriously) of being the existential threat causing mass suicides, all one can do is roll their eyes or turn the TV off. Not even the overly-serious performances by Wahlberg and Deschanel (among the worst of their careers) can reroute the movie from veering so far off the rails.
Mark Wahlberg’s Controversial Drama With 94% on Rotten Tomatoes Finds New Streaming Home
The movie made Mark Wahlberg a big, bright, shining star.
Despite being the undisputed worst movie and performance of his career,The Happeningearned $163 million worldwide on a budget of $60 million maximum (viaBox Office Mojo). By contrast,The Truth About Charliewas a box office bomb, grossing just $7.1 million against a $60 million budget (viaBox Office Mojo). SinceThe Happeningwas far more commercially successful, Wahlberg has excused the inexcusable and instead named a movie that financially tanked as his worst.
It’s disingenuous at best and venal at worst. There’s no conceivable wayThe Happeningis a superior product toThe Truth About Charlie.The latter may not live up to the standard of the original and Demme’s track record, but objectively speaking,The Happening misses the mark in every possible way. At leastThe Truth About Charlielets the viewersbask in Paris' radiant glowand enjoy Newton’s electric performance.The Happeninginsults the audience’s intelligence so often that it’s hard to find any redeeming value whatsoever.
