17th May, 2008 Login • Register
Search This Site
Lady In The Water (2006) DVD Review
Lady In The Water (2006) DVD Credits:
Lady In The Water (2006) Directed by:
M. Night Shyamalan
Lady In The Water (2006) Written by:
M. Night Shyamalan
Lady In The Water (2006) Cast:
Bob Balaban, Cindy Cheung, Sarita Choudhury, Paul Giamatti, Bryce Dallas Howard, Mary Beth Hurt, Joe Reitman, Freddy Rodríguez, Jeffrey Wright
Lady In The Water (2006) Released by:
Not available at this time
Region:
1
Lady In The Water (2006) DVD Release Date:
19th December 2006
Our Rating: Extras Rating:

User Rating:  Log in to rate this DVD
Lady In The Water (2006) Synopsis:

From writer-director M. Night Shyamalan (The Village, Signs, Unbreakable, The Sixth Sense) comes Lady in the Water, a story originally conceived by Shyamalan for his children. Fate won’t let you hide forever. Cleveland Heep (Paul Giamatti) has been quietly trying to disappear among the burned-out lightbulbs and broken appliances of the Cove apartment complex. But on the night that irrevocably changes his life, Cleveland finds someone else hiding in the mundane routine of the modest building – a mysterious young woman named Story (Bryce Dallas Howard), who has been living in the passageways beneath the building’s swimming pool. Cleveland discovers that Story is actually a “narf” – a nymph-like character from an epic bedtime story who is being stalked by vicious creatures determined to prevent her from making the treacherous journey from our world back to hers. Story’s unique powers of perception reveal the fates of Cleveland’s fellow tenants, whose destinies are tied directly to her own, and they must work together to decipher a series of codes that will unlock the pathway to her freedom. But the window of opportunity for Story to return home is closing rapidly, and the tenants are putting their own lives at great risk to help her. Cleveland will have to face the demons that have followed him to the Cove – and the other tenants must seize the special powers that Story has brought out in them – if they hope to succeed in their daring and dangerous quest to save her world...and ours.

Lady In The Water (2006) DVD Review:

Ever since The Sixth Sense M. Night Shyamalan has been a name that America is forced to acknowledge, and often mispronounce. He has made himself known for his unique and mysterious films which nearly always have a twist ending and cameo by the writer/director. His films haven’t always been what audiences expected, but there are many elements which seem to repeat in his films as he struggles for new ideas. Although his style as a director gets more and more pronounced, with each script that he insists on writing and having complete control over there is a decline in the quality of the writing. It seems that having the auteur status of being a writer/director has gone to Shyamalan’s head and he has shown this most apparently with Lady in the Water. After switching studios in order to keep the film the way he wanted it despite notes that it wasn’t working, Shyamalan completed the fairy tale that he supposedly told to his children the way he imagined it. I’m just curious to know if the obvious dig on critics was part of the bed time story for his kids as well.

Shyamalan must not have been all that pleased with the fact that critics found The Village to be pretentious and his cameo obnoxious, so in Lady in the Water he takes the time to develop an unnecessary character who just happens to be a critic, so that he can enact revenge on him. There is a great deal of wonderful visual symbolism in all of Shyamalan’s films, which is what makes him such a technically proficient director, but in this sequence he uses his talent shamelessly to show his distaste for a group of people, merely because they don’t agree with his choices, which sounds a lot like the reason for a change of studio for the film. If only his ego wouldn’t get in the way he might actually be able to make some brilliant films written by much more talented and profound writers. Instead there is a weightiness to Lady in the Water which doesn’t really belong in a film like this. The entire film is actually extremely basic and simple, but Shyamalan loves to complicate things as much as possible.

The latest Shyamalan takes place in an ordinary apartment building in the city, which also just happens to have an enclosed lawn area which is somewhat large, and a cottage for a pool house. The pool house is occupied by an apartment manager (Paul Giamatti) who discovers that a water nymph (Bryce Dallas Howard) is living in the swimming pool, fearful of dangerous creatures in the grass. The various apartment residents must band together to find a way to send her home by using their unique talents. The created mythology for the film is often so intricate that it seems absurd considering the simple plot of the film, and it mostly just weighs down what feels like it should have been a much lighter fairy tale.

The DVD has a somewhat creepy hologram cover and an in-depth documentary in six parts. There are also additional scenes, auditions and a gaga reel. The one feature which seems sorely missing is a commentary track. I would love to hear Shyamalan to better understand his reasoning for stubbornness and anger towards critics as well as a clear explanation of the wonderful visuals he is able to create for the film. A gag reel is a sad substitute.

Our Rating: Extras Rating: User Rating:  Log in to rate this DVD

Lady In The Water (2006) DVD review written by: Ryan Izay

Content Management System provided by P J Thomson - Freelance Web Design - PHP/MySQL Development