Shyamalan has had his ups and downs as a filmmaker, but all his previous films have been dependable in at least one sense: no matter how confusing they became, they always ended up revolving around a simple idea. "Lady in the Water" breaks that pattern, featuring a convoluted story that piles one arbitrary development upon another until finally losing any semblance of a coherent structure. The premise involves a youthful sea nymph who becomes trapped in the human world and must make her way back to her realm (which the film unwisely calls "the Blue World"), avoiding a wolf-like creature that stands in her path. She falls into the life of a lonely middle-aged superintendent (Paul Giamatti) by appearing one night in his swimming pool, stark naked. Any disturbing sexual overtones are kept in the background. This is a bedtime story, after all.
She is a "narf," the wolf-thing is a "scrunt," and she must wait for an eagle called the "Great Eatlon" before she can return home. Each of the apartment tenants has a specific role to play in the process. If any of this sounds bewildering, the movie does little to clear up the confusion. The film's rather forced attempts at allegory--such as naming the sea nymph "Story"--only further prevent this magical world from coming alive. It's just a tangle of exotic names and arbitrary rules.
Giamatti learns most of these details from an Asian woman who, due to some unexplained connection, knows a fairy tale describing Story's predicament. The woman speaks no English, however, and can communicate with Giamatti only through her daughter. This contrived plot device serves one purpose only, and that is to keep Giamatti from learning the necessary details all at once.
Ever since Shyamalan's film "The Sixth Sense" came out, I've heard occasional detractors complain that they figured out the main plot secret early on. My response is, well, good for you. That only shows that the secret was well-planted. (Or that these people are good liars who don't want to admit they were fooled.) Good plot twists always rest on sound logic, giving the audience an opportunity to anticipate them even if they are cleverly concealed. "Lady in the Water" is unpredictable in a bad way, surprising us without rhyme or reason--and that's ironic considering the movie's message about there being a purpose in everything.
Shyamalan is a religious man. He believes strongly that the universe is not random, and he uses this belief as an excuse for lazy storytelling, plugging in plot coincidences that are supposed to seem foreordained but which instead seem unconvincing because we're conscious of how he's manipulating the events. To put it another way: You can't prove God's existence by proving the storyteller's existence.
I've seen other movies handle the topic of cosmic coincidence more believably than he does. His problem, present in "Wide Awake" and "Signs" as well as this film, is that he so fervently wants the audience to see meaning in the events that he doesn't allow for any other interpretation, and this limits his possibilities. He's one of the few Hollywood filmmakers willing to tackle the subject of religion and faith, but I wish he took a less dogmatic approach.
The movie has another serious problem. All fantasies set in the contemporary world have to deal with the fact that people today do not generally believe in the supernatural. In most movies of this sort, the protagonist can scarcely believe what's happening, and all the other characters think he's crazy. That's not the only way of handling this plot convention, but "Lady in the Water" doesn't bother handling it at all. Giamatti never doubts that Story is a sea nymph, and the apartment tenants believe what he's saying almost immediately. None of the characters react the way we'd expect from ordinary human beings in such circumstances.
The most absurd character, by far, is a film critic played Bob Balaban, brought into the movie for some rather unsubtle digs at that profession. His presence leads eventually to a "Scream"-inspired moment of self-referential horror, designed to provide humor at a point when we're least expecting it, but managing to shatter the movie's already shaky sense of reality. If Charlie Kaufman's "Adapatation" represents the best that the self-referential genre has given us, "Lady in the Water" falls well at the bottom. It shows how awkward this conceit can become if handled clumsily.
Giamatti is a fine actor, and the core of sympathy he brings to his character makes the film watchable even as the events around him become increasingly ludicrous. His performance is all the more remarkable when you consider that his character is underwritten. He has some terrible experiences in his past (paralleling those of the Mel Gibson character in "Signs"), but he never feels fleshed out.
Bryce Dallas Howard, as the sea nymph, disappointed me, especially after her promising turn in "The Village." In that film, her clipped and stilted speech was part of the faux-nineteenth-century effect that the movie wanted to evoke. Here it's out of place, and it makes her character distant and hard to relate to, which is fatal to her relationship with Giamatti.
Shyamalan still does a good job creating mood and atmosphere in many scenes. But the film is plagued by so many flaws that I'm not sure it ever could have worked. The storyline is intrinsically artificial and contrived, and he doesn't build up enough of a human base that we can overlook this fact.
She is a "narf," the wolf-thing is a "scrunt," and she must wait for an eagle called the "Great Eatlon" before she can return home. Each of the apartment tenants has a specific role to play in the process. If any of this sounds bewildering, the movie does little to clear up the confusion. The film's rather forced attempts at allegory--such as naming the sea nymph "Story"--only further prevent this magical world from coming alive. It's just a tangle of exotic names and arbitrary rules.
Giamatti learns most of these details from an Asian woman who, due to some unexplained connection, knows a fairy tale describing Story's predicament. The woman speaks no English, however, and can communicate with Giamatti only through her daughter. This contrived plot device serves one purpose only, and that is to keep Giamatti from learning the necessary details all at once.
Ever since Shyamalan's film "The Sixth Sense" came out, I've heard occasional detractors complain that they figured out the main plot secret early on. My response is, well, good for you. That only shows that the secret was well-planted. (Or that these people are good liars who don't want to admit they were fooled.) Good plot twists always rest on sound logic, giving the audience an opportunity to anticipate them even if they are cleverly concealed. "Lady in the Water" is unpredictable in a bad way, surprising us without rhyme or reason--and that's ironic considering the movie's message about there being a purpose in everything.
Shyamalan is a religious man. He believes strongly that the universe is not random, and he uses this belief as an excuse for lazy storytelling, plugging in plot coincidences that are supposed to seem foreordained but which instead seem unconvincing because we're conscious of how he's manipulating the events. To put it another way: You can't prove God's existence by proving the storyteller's existence.
I've seen other movies handle the topic of cosmic coincidence more believably than he does. His problem, present in "Wide Awake" and "Signs" as well as this film, is that he so fervently wants the audience to see meaning in the events that he doesn't allow for any other interpretation, and this limits his possibilities. He's one of the few Hollywood filmmakers willing to tackle the subject of religion and faith, but I wish he took a less dogmatic approach.
The movie has another serious problem. All fantasies set in the contemporary world have to deal with the fact that people today do not generally believe in the supernatural. In most movies of this sort, the protagonist can scarcely believe what's happening, and all the other characters think he's crazy. That's not the only way of handling this plot convention, but "Lady in the Water" doesn't bother handling it at all. Giamatti never doubts that Story is a sea nymph, and the apartment tenants believe what he's saying almost immediately. None of the characters react the way we'd expect from ordinary human beings in such circumstances.
The most absurd character, by far, is a film critic played Bob Balaban, brought into the movie for some rather unsubtle digs at that profession. His presence leads eventually to a "Scream"-inspired moment of self-referential horror, designed to provide humor at a point when we're least expecting it, but managing to shatter the movie's already shaky sense of reality. If Charlie Kaufman's "Adapatation" represents the best that the self-referential genre has given us, "Lady in the Water" falls well at the bottom. It shows how awkward this conceit can become if handled clumsily.
Giamatti is a fine actor, and the core of sympathy he brings to his character makes the film watchable even as the events around him become increasingly ludicrous. His performance is all the more remarkable when you consider that his character is underwritten. He has some terrible experiences in his past (paralleling those of the Mel Gibson character in "Signs"), but he never feels fleshed out.
Bryce Dallas Howard, as the sea nymph, disappointed me, especially after her promising turn in "The Village." In that film, her clipped and stilted speech was part of the faux-nineteenth-century effect that the movie wanted to evoke. Here it's out of place, and it makes her character distant and hard to relate to, which is fatal to her relationship with Giamatti.
Shyamalan still does a good job creating mood and atmosphere in many scenes. But the film is plagued by so many flaws that I'm not sure it ever could have worked. The storyline is intrinsically artificial and contrived, and he doesn't build up enough of a human base that we can overlook this fact.