I haven’t liked an M. Night Shyamalan movie since 1999’s The Sixth Sense, yet I keep watching and watching in the hopes that he’ll regain the form that once catapulted him to Hollywood golden boy status. I know that some people would say that his recent movies are every bit as good (or perhaps even better) than The Sixth Sense, but I definitely don’t feel that way. So when I heard that The Lady in the Water received bad reviews, I wasn’t surprised. And yet, I felt compelled to watch nevertheless.
The Lady in the Water is a difficult movie to describe because very little of it makes sense. By now most people know that Shyamalan based this film on a bedtime tale that he wrote for his children, and while I was watching I got the impression that the plot did indeed feel like it was made up on the spot.
Paul Giamatti stars as apartment building superintendant Cleveland Heep. One day, Heep falls and hits his head by the pool, and later wakes up to discover that a young woman brought him back to his apartment. The woman, played by Bryce Dallas Howard, is named Story (yeah, unfortunately I’m not kidding), and she comes from another world. She’s been living in the apartment complex pool and she needs help from various tenants (the Protector, the Interpreter, the Guardian, etc.) in order to make it back safely.
That’s about the only part of the plot that I think I understood. There are other elements involved, but Shyamalan was all over the place with the details, so the whole thing was rather difficult to follow. For example, I don’t know why Story was living in that pool to begin with. I think the reason was mentioned, but I guess I wasn’t paying close enough attention. Also, I don’t know why she had to be carried away to her own world by a giant eagle (again, I’m not kidding here) or why a weird creature made of shrubbery (?) was stalking her.
The rest of the plot was pretty incomprehensible, and from what I’ve read in other reviews and opinons, I’m not the only one who didn’t “get it”. Yes, I know Shyamalan has said that the movie is about the creative storytelling process, but whatever… it still didn’t make sense and wasn’t entertaining at all.
The Lady in the Water failed on nearly every front. I didn’t find any of the characters compelling, I wasn’t interested in whether or not Story got home, and I thought the acting was subpar. I know a lot of people have said that Giamatti was good in this film, but his portrayal of Heep annoyed me to no end. And Howard — she was just terrible! It was torture for me to watch these people for nearly two hours.
Overall, I can’t see how any but the staunchest Shyamalan fans would like The Lady in the Water. I give it 2 stars out of 5.