Review of Lady in the Water (2006) by Dylan D — 02 Jun 2015

Imagine if Christopher Nolan (Memento, The Dark Knight) or Quentin Tarantino (Inglourious Basterds, Kill Bill) suddenly released a string of critically-panned and audience-loathed films. Unfortunately, that's what's happened to Lady in the Water Director M.

Night Shyamalan, the one-time demigod-like filmmaker that seemed as sure a thing as death and taxes. Now just a decade-plus removed from his astronomical rise to success with The Sixth Sense, Shyamalan is giving it one more go in an effort to salvage the respect of his once-gargantuan fan base with the already-controversial The Last Airbender.

There's no denying Shyamalan's raw talent behind the camera, masterful storytelling ability, and visionary filmmaking techniques. Here's hoping that Airbender returns him to prominence; Hollywood's just not the same without Shyamalan at the top of his game.

As for Lady in the Water, it's a bleak picture with plenty of ideas and the potential to make for moving, purposeful, and maybe even life-changing cinema, but the picture is so bland and the deeper thematic complexities only marginally realized so as to leave viewers with a feeling of detachment and, ultimately, an emptiness when the film concludes, realizing that it represents but the periphery of greatness and an example of painfully unrealized potential.

Lady in the Water still earns an above-average mark for effort, its strong casting, quality score from James Newton Howard (I Am Legend), and Shyamalan's always brilliant craftsmanship, but few films are as disappointing as this when such a magnificently greater good seems so close to realization but ultimately so far away and, unfortunately, never likely to be brought to fruition.