Lady in the Water

Rating PG-13 Formats DVD Genre thriller Starring Paul Giamatti, Bryce Dallas Howard, Jeffrey Wright, Bob Balaban, Sarita Choudhury Directed by M. Night Shyamalan Publisher Warner Home Video External Links Official Lady in the Water Website

Lady in the Water was M. Night Shyamalan's bedtime story. Half fairy tale, half cautionary tale, Lady in the Water was supposed to be the story he told his children before bed. It was a story that grew a life of its own in Night's home and became something that was told, night after night, to the eager children. Shyamalan decided that this bedtime story would make a great film and created Lady in the Water as a film version of his own bedtime story.

Lady in the Water was marketed largely, at least in the commercials I saw, as a scary film about things that go bump in the night. I knew that it wasn't a horror film of any kind and had a fairly balanced perspective on what Shyamalan was going for in the film. In other words, my expectations were to see a film that was exactly what it was. My negative comments about the film, and there are many, are not based on my expectations for the film being something it wasn't ever supposed to be. I knew what I was getting into.

That's not to say that I didn't have better hopes for the quality of Lady in the Water. It was a giant, clustered mess from the beginning that would prove to be one of the more confusing and complicated bedtime stories I have ever heard. The creation of the story is odd with very little character build or development of interest in the people of Lady in the Water. Cleveland Heep (Paul Giamatti) is essentially the only character of any mild interest. Giamatti brings a sweetness to the role, proving to be the film's only bright spot. He is a superintendent of an apartment complex and sees the "Lady in the Water" near the beginning of the convoluted film.

After a while, all hell breaks loose and we are thrust into the middle of this legend that is passed on to Cleveland Heep by his Asian neighbours. He simply believes it to be the relative story that truly relates to his experience with the woman living under the pool in his apartment complex and, unflinchingly, heads on a quest to "save her" and return her to her world. The lady in the water is named "Story", irritatingly, and she is played well enough by Shyamalan's fave Bryce Dallas Howard. She is, however, given little by way of actual dialogue other than some whispery stuff and really fails to develop any sort of interest in her character, what she is, or where she's going. It's ultimately flat and uninteresting, proving to be extremely hard to follow and really hard to get behind emotionally.

The rest of the cast ends up supporting Cleveland and Story in some way, coming to their aid without questioning the reality of this legend from Cleveland's Asian neighbours. Instead, they all accept it as gospel truth and not one scene of doubt towards it all is shown until one character (an apparently important one despite having never seen him before) claims that "he wanted to believe more than anyone". What?

The story rounds out with the creation of a party for a neighbour that is just moving in to the building. The characters decide that they need to get Story safe so that she can be carried away by, yep, a giant eagle. They first need to distract the grassy wolf type thing that stalks her throughout the film and they still don't know who the Guardian is. As the party progresses, the wolf type thing ends up grabbing Story and drags her off into the forest, casting tremendous doubt on the plan of Cleveland and Co. Back to square one, they start trying to reassign their roles in this legend that is playing out in their apartment complex.

Cleveland and others are reassigned roles and they try it again, this time still not really sure who the Guardian is. This apparent role of importance is brought to light soon enough, however, as it's the guy with the denim vest and shorts that is the Guardian!! Yes, him. I bet you never saw that one coming!

Nonetheless, the giant grassy eagle sweeps down and grabs Story and takes her back to her world, which we never knew enough about to care. The Guardian, whoever the hell he is, fights off the wolf (somewhat) until the grassy beast is grabbed by grassy monkeys that come down from the trees to take it away. What? Sure, all of this is loosely covered by the instantly accepted and believed legend from Cleveland's Asian neighbours, but I mostly didn't want any of it to be so true because it was....well, so stupid.

The performances really lack, including Shyamalan himself who is injected into the film as a fairly pivotal but uninteresting character living with his sister. His sister, played by Sarita Choudhury, is perhaps the most boringly abrasive character in the film. She really has no purpose that I could discern, much like 90% of the people in the film, and Choudhury is so terrible in the role that it creates a wincing effect when her mouth opens to speak. There's also a bunch of smokers in the film that were supposed to be "The Guild" but end up being replaced by five sisters who apparently are the real guild. Why? I have no earthly clue.

Lady in the Water is a convoluted, confusing, cluster of a mess with a story that consciously swirls the drain towards the absurd. It lacks a human element entirely which is blisteringly ironic when one considers that the elements are supposed to combine humanity with other "worlds." Not one human in the film, short of a few Cleveland Heep moments, acts like one. The film looks okay, I suppose, but even then it lacks the flavour of something special or even something mildly interesting. This is certainly Shyamalan's weakest and worst film to date.