The Lady in the Water
M. Night Shyamalan believes. A lot. So much so that, in the realm of his movie universe there is no longer room for doubt. With his first major success “The Sixth Sense,” Mr. Shyamalan explored a world many of us feel to on the periphery of. Where more is lost to the unknown. His characters, whether they be a small boy, a beaten down security guard, or a clergy whose lost his faith, came from being outsiders with their respective powers to help or even save, looking in to the rest of the world, to inward veering communities eyeing the rest of the world with suspicion or just simple hostility.
Mr. Shyamalan has gone from a steady journey of very humbly asking and trying to convince us to believe, to simply flick our ears and saying, “believe damn it! Just believe!” over and over again. “Lady in the Water,” achieves this end, although in the nicest possible way.
The action centers on an out of the way apartment complex in Philadelphia known as ‘The Cove.’ The apartments surrounds a pool shaped rather like a deformed heart, and is filled the usual motley assortment of secondary characters; a crossword whiz (Jeffery Wright) an exercise buff who only exercises one side of his body (a criminally under used Freddy Rodriguez) a Britney-esque Asian college student and her harpy mother, and the requisite twenty something slackers who sit around saying to themselves, “Dude! Let’s think of a new witty catch phrase!”
The grounds are maintained by a man by the name of Cleveland Heep (Paul Giamatti). Mr. Heep it would seem is Mr. Shyamalan’s affront to agnostic humanism. Mr. Heep maintains the state of things. He helps his residents where he can, but does so without any true sense of purpose, or happiness. It is without this purpose, or belief that keeps Mr. Heep from enacting any lasting change. He stutters, inexplicably, and seems to have no greater design then to just maintain his and his tenants existence.
That is, however, until he comes into contact with the Sea nymph, Story (with names like Heep and Story it’s obvious Mr. Shyamalan is not striving for subtlety.) Story (Bryce Dallas Howard) speaks to Cleveland about a man she must meet. She is to awaken him to the fact that he is the man who will light the spark to change the world. That man, it turns out, is played by none other then M. Night Shyamalan. That mission is complicated, however, by the presence of an untold number of Scrunts. Oversized dogs with red eyes and grass pelts that are able to attack and kill narfs whenever they are out of the water.
Narfs are probably the least frightening screen creature Mr. Shyamalan has yet devised, and for good reason. The final thesis of “Lady in the Water,” isn’t to frighten but to light the spark, so to speak. It is clear that Mr. Shyamalan no longer has patience for unbelievers. As a direct affront to non-believers and perhaps even his critics, Mr. Shyamalan places all the doubt into the embodiment of a single character. A film critic who invades the cove, gets everything wrong, and then gets eaten by an oversized dog.
The other characters are far too eager to believe. So eager, in fact, that when the outer worldly and ethereal presence of Story appears they are more then willing to hop on board with ideas of the blue world, the guild, the healer, the protector, the symbologist, and narfs.
For Mr. Shyamalan this is not a far leap in logic. His empty tenants are awaiting vessels of destiny. Sharpening their strangely specific talents for an, as of yet, unimplanted sense of purpose. So when Story tells them, “you don’t realize that your all connected,” and “all beings have a purpose,” and when healing power of her presence relieves Mr. Heep of his stutter (because belief heals…subtle no?) no persuasion is necessary.
“Lady in the Water,” is by far Mr. Shymalan’s most arrogant and vapid effort to date, but even in this clear of a mess Mr. Shymalan’s talent is still able to peek, if not shine, through. Mr. Shymalan has a knack for getting the best out of his performers (himself not included) and Mr. Giamatti gives another sterling example of his off beat brilliance while Bryce Dallas Howard, in an underwritten role, shows traces of the performer she’ll become in worthier efforts. Still, Mr. Shymalan’s well-timed sense of humor and obvious sincerity makes “Lady in the Water,” oddly watchable if not wholly enjoyable.