Review of Lady in the Water (2006) by R. Shane H — 12 Mar 2012

This is one of the most interesting movies I've seen in awhile; which doesn't necessarily mean it's altogether that great. I am perplexed over this movie; this is both a great failure and triumph of a movie.

Watching The Lady in the Water is like reading a Charles De Lint urban fantasy novel; but much like many Stephen King novels, the journey is greater than the destination. Shyamalan has done something interesting here; he infuses The Lady in the Water with a frankly stupid mythology (the story is the movie mythology started as a bedtime story to Shyamalan's children, I am inclined to believe it), but there is an emotional truth to the storytelling that I found very interesting. Shyamalan's spirituality, like the rest of his movies (besides The Last Airbender, which is a black hole of nothingness, where nothing can survive, even his spirituality), is very important to The Lady in Water. He has created a fairy tale (bad mythology not withstanding) were the characters are looking for purpose, or importance in their lives, and the characters blindly accept Cleveland's "Story." As a viewer, I am able to suspend my disbelief, as I do with great films like The Last Temptation of Christ and The Apostle. Apparently a lot of other people have had trouble doing so for this movie; I had only heard terrible things about this movie, but I wanted to be a Shyamalan completest, so here I am.

If it wasn't for lack of ability to suspend belief, then perhaps others have been turned off by some of the stilted dialogue and performances. Paul Giamatti is terrific with what he is given. Some of the other small character roles are also spot on. But there are two performances that negatively stand out; Shyamalan as a writer with a crucial role in the movie and Bryce Dallas Howard as the title character. Now, Shyamalan should have known better; the writer role was solidly written and could have been more moving given a better actor in his place. The character is interesting, the actor not so. Bryce Dallas Howad, on the other hand, I'm not so sure about. The character is off. The script is off when focused on Story. Bryce Dallas Howard is off. I'm not sure how the character/performance/script could have handled her better, but I just know it needed to be better/different. Shyamalan doesn't seem to have a good grasp on the character, and wasn't very helpful to Bryce Dallas Howard. I don't think it's the actress' fault per se; it's a very difficult character to get right, especially when the director/writer doesn't have the character right.

I feel with a few tweaks here, a few edits there, maybe another rewrite or two, a different performance or two from the actors, and this could have been a great movie, instead of just a very interesting failure, which is why I still give it three stars. A movie that could use a (rightly done) director's cut. One of the most interesting failures I've seen in awhile, especially one in which I still liked.