Lady in the Water

Is it just me or has M. Night Shayamalan’s promising career as a filmmaker gone completely South the past few years? It seems that with each new film, he becomes increasingly boring and anti-climactic in his storytelling and always tries to make his films look as if they are more important than they actually are.

His latest movie “Lady in the Water" is no exception as he yet again attempts to pile as many philosophical themes regarding politics and the human condition as he can into 110 minutes of film. His intentions are noble, but unfortunately the end result just isn’t strong enough to support such deep and profound material.

His film centers around an old Philadelphia apartment complex called The Cove that is said to have a mysterious being living at the bottom of its swimming pool. It appears only after the pool has closed for the night and has reportedly been stealing random items left behind by the people who live there.

When it’s brought to the attention of the superintendent, he promises to look into it and make sure it doesn’t happen again.

Cleveland Heep (Paul Giamatti) is an honest man who goes about his business everyday constantly doing repairs and other odd jobs to keep his tenants happy, which helps keep his mind off the death of his family. Despite not having a very demanding role, Giamatti (Sideways, Cinderella Man) delivers a sincere performance as Heep and is one of the few bright spots this film has to offer. While in his apartment late one night, he hears strange noises coming from the pool so he immediately goes to check it out.

It turns out that it’s not a creature, but a woman that has been living in the pool and causing quite the stir among the tenants. Her name is Story (Bryce Dallas Howard) and she is a narf (water nymph) that has come from the Blue World to try and save the human race from destroying itself. Now that sounds interesting and all, but it quickly becomes so preposterous and far-fetched that not even Shayamalan’s sense of humor can save this one from an early demise. Whether they were intended to be or not, many moments in this film are so laugh out loud ridiculous that they actually make the film a little more bearable.

There is one scene in which a little boy is receiving theoretical messages while staring at cereal boxes and I couldn’t help but wonder what Shayamalan was thinking about when he wrote that absurd thing. As if the plot wasn’t silly enough, we later find out that certain people living in the building have been pre-selected to help Story return home safely. Determined to find out who they are, Cleveland goes to an old woman who through her daughter’s translation, tells him the bedtime story of the narf and how an eagle is supposed to come down and take her back to the Blue World.

He is told that the purpose of the narf’s visit is to come in contact with a writer living in the building and inform him that his work will ultimately change the world forever. By providing this information, Shayamalan manages to take all of the suspense out of the story and make it quite predictable the rest of the way.

The fact that the writer turns out to be the character played by Shayamalan himself shows just how self-indulgent he has truly become. Although there are a few good jolts in the film, the pointlessness of the ending made everything else seem wasted.

From a director who created such brilliant films as “The Sixth Sense" and “Signs", I found it to be a great disappointment.Shayamalan has created another film with an intriguing premise that wasted no time becoming pointless and forgettable. For those who thought 2004’s “The Village" was just a fluke, you’ll be frustrated to know that not much has changed and that this one is indeed dead in the water.

- ** out of 4