Lady in the Water (2006)
LADY IN THE WATER
Bryce Dallas HowardBryce Dallas Howard
Paul GiamattiPaul Giamatti










Rated PG-13

1 hr 50 mins

Dramas

Wide

07-21-2006


Directed by M. Night ShyamalanM. Night Shyamalan









CONSENSUS
A far-fetched story with little suspense and unconvincing scenarios, Lady In The Water feels contrived, pretentious, and rather silly.
SYNOPSIS
A modest building manager named Cleveland Heep rescues a mysterious young woman from danger and discovers she is actually a narf, a character from a bedtime story who is trying to make the treacherous journey from our world back to hers. more...

MPAA RATING
PG-13, for some frightening sequences



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CRITICS 24%USERS 69%MyCRITICSMyFRIENDS 24% 24%
Reviews Counted: 75
Fresh: 18 Rotten: 57
Average Rating: 4/10

"A far-fetched story with little suspense." FILM REVIEWS
Critic Source Rating Date
(1-35) of 74, sorted by last name z-a Page 123 > Next | View All

Brian Lowry

Shyamalan has followed The Village with another disappointment -- a ponderous, self-indulgent bedtime tale.



(What is this?)


"For a movie constantly explaining itself, M. Night Shyamalan's Lady in the Water doesn't make a drop of sense."

-- Jeffrey Westhoff, NORTHWEST HERALD (CRYSTAL LAKE, IL)
"It's an ambitious mess at best, and the invented mythology is delivered to the viewer with the subtlety of a sledgehammer."

-- John Venable, SUPERCALA.COM
"A gaping psychic wound, a blood-spattered, pulsating tumor ripped violently from both its creator's head and, more fascinatingly, his heart, then planted onscreen, raw and unfettered, for all to come and see."

-- Keith Uhlich, SLANT MAGAZINE

"You won't see anything else like it this summer, and you'll be really glad about that."

-- Frank Swietek, ONE GUY'S OPINION
"Monster House is arguably the best family film so far this summer."

-- Stax, IGN FILMFORCE
"Apologists for the categorically inadequate M. Night Shyamalan have their work cut out defending yet another cinematic killjoy from the 'auteur' whose high box office receipts do not reflect the ineptitude of his filmmaking skills."

-- Cole Smithey, COLESMITHEY.COM

"The critic in me wants to boo and hiss and cry in disappointment. The 5-year-old in me wants to stand up and applaud."

-- Alex Sandell, JUICY CEREBELLUM
"I suspect audiences will see Shyamalan's portentous doodle for what it is -- the height of arrogance and a bad night out at the movies."

-- Peter Rainer, CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR
"Mysterious and sweet. It's scary and it's funny, and it's deeply moving, too. That makes Water a rare exception in terms of cinematic hybrids, but it also represents Shyamalan's best effort since 2000's Unbreakable."

-- Jon Popick, PLANET SICK-BOY
"Any magic lurking in this fairy tale is smothered by Shyamalan's need to play everything straight."

-- Matt Pais, METROMIX.COM
"It's silly. It's just silly, and it's a shame."

-- Eugene Novikov, FILM BLATHER
"Maybe the theme is that you should try to score some of that stuff Shyamalan must be smoking."

-- Phil Villarreal, ARIZONA DAILY STAR
"A tedious, astonishingly irritating march through scene after scene of quasi-Jungian horse flop."

-- Rob Vaux, FLIPSIDE MOVIE EMPORIUM

"Narf, scrunt and tartutic may sound silly, but I was interested in the story. If J.K. Rowling can make up muggle, M. Night can have those three. It's a far more involving than the manufactured tales of Da Vinci scholars."

-- Fred Topel, CAN MAGAZINE
"Lady in the Water marks M. Night Shyamalan's official leap off the deep end. Not everyone agrees on Shyamalan's talent as a filmmaker, but few, up till now, have questioned his sanity."

-- Dana Stevens, SLATE
"When it's over you think: 'Really? That was it?' Maybe that's the twist."

-- Eric D. Snider, ERICDSNIDER.COM
"Performances are bang-on and characters fascinating right across the board, even Shyamalan's own -- but ultimately Lady in the Water capsizes under the weight of its own goofy story."

-- Marc Savlov, AUSTIN CHRONICLE
"Silly and sappy ... Shyamalan continues on his steady descent in quality."

-- Steve Rhodes, INTERNET REVIEWS
"Concludes with a big 'huh?' that leaves one questioning what the point was."

-- Dustin Putman, THEMOVIEBOY.COM
"This movie is not as bad as it's being made out to be. But it isn't really good either."

-- David Poland, HOT BUTTON
"If Shyamalan wants to slap around film critics, hey, fine by me; but to sacrifice your entire film to do so reeks of a director who could stand to hear a little more "no" in his life."

-- Brian Orndorf, EFILMCRITIC.COM
"Unless you're an M Night Shyamalan fanatic aching to see the writer/director play one of the film's main characters, there's no reason to endure Lady in the Water."

-- Rebecca Murray, ABOUT.COM
"This creative dream-like summer pic is sure to entertain sci-fi junkies, but will become a big turnoff for many audiences expecting a modern thriller/horror flick with a Shyamalan twist."

-- Danny Minton, KBTV-NBC (BEAUMONT, TX)



"Far-fetched is the kindest thing to say about Lady in the Water, a disjointed and mind-numbing story."

-- Diana Saenger, REVIEWEXPRESS.COM
20% Rating: Rotten Avg. Rating: 3.9/10

"Lady in the Water challenges us to believe in the power of myth. But the big challenge here is surviving the tedium of Shyamalan's meandering inventiveness. What's supposed to be fanciful storytelling is really just audience punishment."

-- Stephanie Zacharek, SALON.COM
"For weeks the Web has been rich with rumors that Lady in the Water is a dog. The noble truth is that M. Night Shyamalan's new thriller isn't half bad. The awful truth is that it's not really half good, either."

-- Philip Wuntch, DALLAS MORNING NEWS
"If the ultimate goal is entertainment, then Lady in the Water enthusiastically rises to the task."

-- Desson Thomson, WASHINGTON POST
"Unless he retains the poise and cool that made Sixth Sense stand out so conspicuously amid his body of work, we're not going to care about anything in his head."

-- Gene Seymour, NEWSDAY
"Shyamalan's most alienating and self-absorbed project to date."

-- Lisa Schwarzbaum, ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY

"It's hard to think of a deadlier shotgun marriage than Jacques Tourneur's poetry of absence and Spielbergian uplift, but Shyamalan has patented the combo, adding pretentious camera movements that are peculiarly his own -- even the jokes are pretty solemn."

-- Jonathan Rosenbaum, CHICAGO READER
"Hollywood cannot pollute the ozone with anything more idiotic, contrived, amateurish or sub-mental than Lady in the Water."

-- Rex Reed, NEW YORK OBSERVER
"Just when the story begs for some clean lines and a sense of direction, we get dithering and misdirection and another confused-tenants sequence."

-- Michael Phillips, CHICAGO TRIBUNE
"As with all of his other films, Lady in the Water offers plenty of grist for after-movie dinner conversations. The film is not without merit, just difficult to figure out. Maybe that's the way Shyamalan wants it."

-- Bill Muller, ARIZONA REPUBLIC
"Murky like the water in the pool, or like Christopher Doyle's cinematography."

-- Joe Morgenstern, WALL STREET JOURNAL
( More... )


"entertaining enough for those of us who appreciate magical realism, but I suspect that mainstream audiences will be disappointed by this convoluted and pretentious film."

-- Sean McBride, SEAN THE MOVIE GUY
(
[Edited 7/21/06 4:20am]
[Edited 7/21/06 4:22am]

Shyamalan's films r all about the 'twists' at the end.

I hated "THE SIXTH SENSE" and "UNBREAKABLE", "SIGNS" was okay at best.

I don't watch his films anymore.

Yeah, it sucks. You could tell from the trailer. People were laughing their ass off at the trailer alone, when it was supposed to evoke fear or dread or something of the sort. And then I saw Shyamamalalmalaldingdong's shallow ass in the trailer and found out he had cast himself in a featured role - the kiss of death for any film director (for him, it really started with Signs). Let's hope this shit bombs like it deserves to, and then maybe he'll be motivated to make a different film instead of the photocopies of his previous films he's perpetrated on us for the past four years or so.
[Edited 7/21/06 4:33am]

i don't like this guy's movies at all. i've seen all of them but 'sixth sense', which i didn't see when i guessed the "surprise ending" when someone told me the basic plot. i don't get how he became so popular. his stories are crap.

his new one actually got a good review in our local paper ... said it was magical and mysterious ... 3-1/2 starts ....

it didnt look that great to me either ... and i havnt seen anything by him since "the sixth sense"....

'Water' is deep but worthwhile trying to fathom
Friday, July 21, 2006
BY LI WANG
Of The Patriot-News
It's difficult to believe in magic in these days of instant information.

In his latest film, "Lady in the Water," writer/director M. Night Shyamalan tries to reinvigorate our ability to close our eyes and visit an alternative dreamscape.

For many viewers of the film, what Shyamalan asks is too much; the central premise is unbelievable. Why do the tenants of a rundown suburban Philadelphia apartment complex suddenly believe that the naked lady sitting in the maintenance man's shed is really a mystical creature sent to Earth to save souls?

I happen to believe in the supernatural. I pray to my ancestors. I see dead people.

In "Lady" Paul Giamatti is Cleveland, a hapless apartment fix-it man who discovers a translucent-skinned redhead (Bryce Dallas Howard) living in the building's pool. He soon learns her name (Story) and begins to gather the pieces of a puzzle (held by a Korean tenant) that leads him to surmise that the water creature needs to be rescued and returned to her homeland, the Blue World.

Slowly it is revealed that each of the weird transients in the complex could have an instrumental role in saving Story, and themselves in the process. Are the building's gang of slackers really knowing philosophers? Are there clues on a cereal box that only a child can see?

If the plot sounds convoluted, well, it is. But, fortunately, Giamatti makes the stuttering Cleveland the ideal host to the absurd proceedings. The minimalist actor (best known for his hilarious and heartbreaking performance in "Sideways") is on top of his game here. Projecting the weariness of a man worn down from past tragedy, the balding Everyman makes us believe in Cleveland so that we can also believe why everyone else in the apartment complex is also on board.

But will moviegoers eagerly go along for the ride that can't be tucked into a genre like horror or fantasy?

While audiences embraced the metaphysical head trip of Shyamalan's first major feature, "The Sixth Sense," not of all his successive works ("Unbreakable," "The Village") have been wholeheartedly accepted. I praise his willingness to experiment and not simply crank out thrillers with a jolt. "Lady in the Water" is a meditative work, with no traditional horror scares, that takes time to develop. The payoff is dependent on whether or not you buy into the events in this rain-drenched microcosm.

For me, the ride -- filled with humorous interludes involving Cleveland's missteps, wolflike monsters in the grass and an oddball assortment of apartment-dwellers -- held my attention.

Shyamalan, who calls his movies "metaphorical conversations on faith," might be grasping for deeper meaning in his loosely formed story, which originated as a bedtime tale for his daughters. But by the end of the movie, there was no doubt in my mind that our earthly existence has only a small significance -- especially when there are entire universes out there that we haven't connected with yet.

So if you happen to be a freak like me, let "Lady in the Water" take you to another plane.

Anx said:

I think he's overrated, too.

Anx said:

I just sort of 'eh' about them all. But I really, really liked the teaser trailor for this. I'm a sucker for a good teaser trailor. lol.

CarrieMpls said:

I wanted the narator to say something like "You saw Paul Giamatti do practically nothing in Sideways. Now watch him do even less! The Lady in the Water, Out July 21st."

kidelrich said:

oh, come on. I loved Sideways.

kidelrich said:

huh? what?

he was a hoot in sideways! and in american splendor!

Anx said:

I loved Sideways, but it's not exactly chock full of, well, anything really.

kidelrich said:

good, because i sent sandra oh over to your place with a motorcycle helmet.

and she's PISSED.

Anx said:

Their commentary track on the dvd is heelarious!
[Edited 7/21/06 6:15am]

Loved this movie....but couldn't get a lot of reasoning as to why the mentally impaired individual lived...ppssssst...I know why!

loved sideways too

"i had my dick in her ass and her old man came home "

CarrieMpls said:

I did too..

I thought Signs was a wonderful movie.. very touching..


don't plan on see'in this one tho

There are things I like about Shyamalan: He attempts grown up, not stupid teeny bopper, horror films. His flicks are imbued with at least a little folk literacy. His wife is fine! And, I gotta admit, I want to cheer for a native Indian filmmaker doing well in Hollywood. But he so quickly spiraled into the self-important, one-trick talent that we see now, that I actually wonder if we've all been duped. Speaking strictly from the record, this guy made one movie with a decent twist and suddenly he's Alfred friggin' Hitchcock? I don't understand.

The Sixth Sense's atmosphere and "surprise" were fair enough, but aside from that, the one element that truly cemented that project was Haley Joel Osment's amazing performance. I suppose a director could take some credit for that, but I'd wager it had at least as much to do with Haley's gift. Unbreakable and Signs were both downright wack. I've not seen The Village, but the synopses I've read seem yawningly status quo for Shyamalan. And the same goes for this latest project.

What is it about this guy that people like so much?

This is a case of "in the valley of the blind, the one-eyed man is king." Shyamalan gets over, I suspect, mostly because other horror has been so absolutely lacking in intelligence and artfulness.
[Edited 7/21/06 8:45am]

Another thing I've grown to dislike about him is the fact he so relies on things that don't centrally matter to his true craft to establish himself. He's a high priest of the cult of personality: All the dumb cameos, his name presented in movie credits as prominently as the very titles of his films, and then this kinda crap (which I found on Wikipedia)...

Sci Fi Channel hoax
In 2004, Shyamalan was involved in a media hoax with the Sci Fi Channel, which when eventually uncovered by the press prompted Sci Fi's parent company, NBC-Universal, to denounce the undertaking as "not consistent with our policy at NBC. We would never intend to offend the public or the press and value our relationship with both".

Sci Fi claimed in its "documentary" special — The Buried Secret of M. Night Shyamalan, shot on the set of The Village — that Shyamalan was legally dead for nearly a half-hour while drowned in a frozen pond in a childhood accident, and that upon being rescued he had experiences of communicating with spirits, fueling an obsession with the supernatural. The Sci Fi Channel also claimed that Shyamalan had grown "sour" when the "documentary" filmmakers' questions got too personal, and had therefore withdrawn from participating and threatened to sue the filmmakers.

In truth, Shyamalan developed the hoax with Sci Fi, going so far as having Sci Fi staffers sign non-disclosure agreements with a $5 million fine attached, and required Shyamalan's office to formally approve each step. Neither the childhood accident nor the supposed rift with the filmmakers ever occurred. The hoax included a non-existent Sci Fi publicist, "David Westover", whose name appeared on press releases regarding the special. Sci Fi also fed false news stories to the Associated Press and Zap2It.com, among others. A New York Post news item, based on a Sci Fi press release, referred to Shyamalan's attorneys threatening to sue the filmmakers; the attorneys named were non-existent.

After an AP reporter confronted Sci Fi Channel president Bonnie Hammer at a press conference, Hammer admitted the hoax, saying it was part of a guerrilla marketing campaign to generate pre-release publicity for The Village. Despite his office's disclosure-agreement requirement and approvals of each marketing step, Shymalan told the AP, "I was, of course, involved in the production of the special but had nothing to do with the marketing of it. If the Sci Fi Channel erred in their marketing strategy, it was totally out of enthusiasm".

Such artifice. Makes me lose some respect for him.

Why do the tenants of a rundown suburban Philadelphia apartment complex suddenly believe that the naked lady sitting in the maintenance man's shed is really a mystical creature sent to Earth to save souls?

Why did this sentence crack me the fuck up?

I like him so I'm gonna give it a chance. I rarely agree with the movie critics anyway. I saw the sci-fi channel thingy too, but I knew it wasn't real. Not sure why he pulled that stunt.

FunkMistress said:

because it explains what happened to zelaira?

I know I'm not going to see it.

I think this guy's films all basically suck so this doesn't surprise me.

-- Cole Smithey, COLESMITHEY.COM

"The critic in me wants to boo and hiss and cry in disappointment. The 5-year-old in me wants to stand up and applaud."


-----

Cole's my friend!!!! We've gotten drunk together before!!

Anx said:

Hitchcock mastered what he's trying to do, so did John Frankenheimer. Pedro Almodóvar has a library of films in the last decade or so that M. Night keeps trying to make. The fact that Almodovar isn't hyped as much is a damn shame, then again most people have a hard time with subtitles.
[Edited 7/21/06 21:26pm]

Shymalan has made TWO good movies: "Signs" and "Unbreakable."

"Sixth Sense" was just a long episode of "The Twilight Zone" and "The Village" was the worst film I saw in 2004. LAME! LAME! LAME!

SnakePeel said:

unbrekable was the biggest piece of contrived shit i'd seen in a long time

Anx said:

And to think that I loved you, once!