Lady In The Water (2006) Movie Review

Lady In The Water (2006) Movie Credits:

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Lady In The Water (2006) U.S. Cinema Release Date:

21^st Jul 2006

Lady In The Water (2006) U.K. Cinema Release Date:

18^th Aug 2006

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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) Review:

Shyamalan is back with another supernatural fable, this time based on a story he made up for his daughters. It's beautifully made and thoroughly intriguing, but it feels made up as it goes along, which makes it both convoluted and self-important.

Cleveland Heep (Giamatti) is an apartment complex caretaker who discovers a young woman named Story (Howard) in the swimming pool. Turns out she's a water nymph on a mission, so he sets out to help her, drawing in the building's residents one by one--puzzle fanatic (Wright), film critic (Balaban), writer (Shyamalan), chatty tramp (Cheung), comical musclehead (Rodriguez), historian (Irwin), cat lady (Hurt) and pothead (Harris). But a snarling grass-wolf is trying to keep Story from finishing her job, and Cleveland might be getting everything wrong.

While the plot is fascinating, it's also badly underdeveloped, never establishing any logic for Story's world. Shyamalan clearly refused to refine what he continually refers to (in the dialog) as a "bedtime story". As a result it feels corny and pretentious as new elements of the mythology are introduced every few minutes (it's handy that an expert on the legend also lives in the building), and the creatures have both silly names and ill-defined motives. Narfs, tartutic and scrunts, oh my!

But while he injects snappy wit and keeps production levels high (except for some dodgy effects), Shyamalan unfurls the narrative with an unbearable seriousness that continually swirls back into itself and then has the nerve to poke fun at those who criticise such ill-formed storylines. All of the characters are defined merely by one or two quirks; one actually snarls something about how arrogant it all is, while another says, "You have to believe that this all makes sense somehow."

Fortunately, the cast is good enough to carry us through the uneven tale. Giamatti is especially wonderful, creating a terrific character we can identify with--heavy baggage with a yearning for redemption. His development is purely due to Giamatti's layered performance. While the only character with a fully formed story (beginning, middle and end) is Shyamalan's. Which kind of betrays the film as pure indulgence.