Review: Lady in the Water (2006)

Lady in the Water
reviewed by Sam Osborn

rating: 2.0 out of 4

Director: M. Night Shyamalan
Screenplay: M. Night Shyamalan
Cast: Paul Giamatti, Bryce Dallas Howard
MPAA Classification: PG-13 (some frightening sequences)

So I'm late to the party where critics nationwide maim the likes of
M. Night Shyamalan. My tardiness, I suppose, is due to the fact that I
was the one lonely critic who liked The Village. It was clever, I
thought, and successfully brooding in style and tone. I bought into it,
which is not something I can say about Shyamalan's latest picture
Lady in the Water. The film, his seventh, lacks any of the unseen
menace from Signs and begets almost none of the shivers from The Sixth
Sense. There was awe to Unbreakable and that quiet brooding from The
Village. Lady in the Water has wolves covered in grass, big monkeys and
a half-naked girl. Sounds like a Michael Bay film, not something from
M. Night Shyamalan.

The story is easily the most far-fetched of Shyamalan's bunch. It
involves a world of water and a world of land. Humans occupy the land
world and have drifted farther and farther away from the world of
water. But the nutty little mermaid nymphs of the water world want a
reunion to bring peace back to the world of land. So out from the drain
of an apartment complex's pool comes Story (Bryce Dallas Howard),
scaring the daylights out of the landlord, Cleveland Heep (Paul
Giamatti). Taking her under his wing and listening to her bizarre,
simple sentenced tale, he learns that she is in fact from the world of
water. Asking around the tenants, Cleveland finds a Chinese bedtime
story that matches the Story's tale. Without giving too much away
about the big monkeys and wolves covered in grass, Cleveland learns
that if the right sequence of events occurs, Story could make a
significant change in the human world, er....the land world in
Shyamalan-speak; just as long as she doesn't get eaten by the land
and water world's eternal enemy.

For as complicated as it seems, Lady in the Water is no more complex
than what it touts itself as: a bedtime story. And this is its largest
problem. The issue isn't in the absurdity of Shyamalan's tale
because, seriously, how many of his plots aren't absurd? No, the
issue with Lady in the Water is that it never comes to a boil. The tale
is simplistic and undercooked. There's very little mystery to be
puzzled, and no twist to speak of at the end (a fact much publicized
already). The great potential for menace is smeared clear over with
the large helping of anti-climactic encounters with the wolf creatures
and the naked mermaid-thing, Story, is so boring that she makes the
drones from The Village look as nutty as circus freaks. It's a clever
idea--bringing a bedtime story to the unimpressive realities of
middle-class apartment life-but only if the bedtime story can invoke
some real excitement. Shyamalan holds the thrills at bay to make room
for slower, more profound material. Problem is, profundity never
figures in to Lady in the Water. Shyamalan hints at a deeper meaning,
showing images of war and disenchantment with the current state of
international politics. He even lays a significant element of the
bedtime story in the hands of world-weariness, but in the end refuses
to let his theme materialize. All we're left with is that silly
bedtime story, sans thrill factor.

The only card truly played is that of Paul Giamatti's. Time and again
he's proven his acting bones without Academy recognition (and he
won't be getting any here), but Mr. Giamatti is an incredible, really
incredible actor. Shyamalan is no stranger to strong characters,
especially the downtrodden middle-aged man, and his work with
Giamatti's character, Cleveland Heep, is a shining star among ashes
for Lady in the Water. Giamatti's co-star, Bryce Dallas Howard,
hardly deserves mention since her role could be played by a nine year
old. Droning lines with wide eyes was never difficult, so needless to
say, the talented Ms. Howard does fine. Supporting work by Jeffrey
Wright, Sarita Choudhury, and Shyamalan himself are all quite good,
too.

And so it isn't the acting that's Lady in the Water's problem;
nor is it the camera work or pacing or direction. For M. Night
Shyamalan has already proven that he's a swell director with the
talent to sometimes be great. But Shyamalan is an easy target for us
critics and it seems he's fed up with it. Lady in the Water is a film
that shows him floundering with his career and wanting to be or make
something different. He even creates a film critic character, Mr. Leeds
(Bill Irwin), just so he can kill him off in the most theatric manner
his film will allow. It's a show of frustration and zany vendetta.
But the man's typical formula of the scare-and-twist movie is changed
as well, looking for something the same but, as usual, fundamentally
different. He even acts a major role in the film, a role that has
prophetic importance. Shyamalan seems to be reaching for something
beyond scary movies, something he's hinted at before but hadn't
lunged for. Well, he's lunged for the profound and found only a
couple scraps of shredded paper. With his next project, he'll have to
choose a direction. We'll just have to wait and see. But if it's
the mass of critics hating his films that's bothering him, somebody
should remind him that Alfred Hitchcock, surely one of his role models,
didn't find critical welcome until about 1968, forty years after his
career started.

-www.samseescinema.com