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[LosingNow]

WSJ reviewer ripping it apart...Nasty stuff here! I think he is getting personal here. Brutal.
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Turgid 'Lady In the Water' Does What a Bedtime Story Should: It Puts Us to Sleep

M. Night Shyamalan's "Lady In the Water" was inspired, we are told, by a bedtime story the filmmaker told his kids. I'm here to tell you that this cloying piece of claptrap sets a high-water mark for pomposity, condescension, false profundity and true turgidity -- no small accomplishment for the man whose last two features were the deadly duo "Signs" and "The Village." Mr. Shyamalan's new film, in which a saintly water nymph named Story surfaces in an apartment building's swimming pool, is being sold as another of his tales of the supernatural. His first success in the genre was the genuinely creepy "The Sixth Sense," with its signature line "I see dead people." But that was seven years ago. Now everyone is dead in "Lady In the Water," and they aren't meant to be. They've simply been suffocated by super-seriousness in the telling of a small, murky fable.

Murky like the water in the pool, or like Christopher Doyle's cinematography. If I understand correctly, Story is a character from an ancient bedtime tale -- in the movie's terminology, a Narf. She has ventured from her home, the Blue World, for the sake of humankind, but she needs human help to return, since her passage is blocked by Scrunts -- snarky growlers, from the world of not-so-special effects, suggesting hyenas with Formica-chip coats.

Story, who speaks without contractions, is played by Bryce Dallas Howard with the sentimental, diaphanous quality that was once associated with Laura in "The Glass Menagerie." She is always on the verge of tears, or in tears, thanks to her fears for humanity or for herself, or to the chlorine in the pool. Paul Giamatti is Cleveland Heep, the apartment superintendent who discovers her, and who, by protecting the fragile Narf, finds his own higher purpose. The filmmaker's purpose is to make Cleveland a surrogate for suffering humanity by giving him an off-putting stutter and a tragic past. "Your words are very beautiful. Your heart is very big," Story tells him after peeking in his private journal. But the words that Mr. Shyamalan puts in Cleveland's mouth are very pretentious in their very mock-simplicity, and one's heart goes out to the superb actor charged with speaking them.

"Lady In the Water" is studded with cartoonish performances in other roles: Mr. Shyamalan's notions of comedy and horror have grown equally grotesque. And the narrative is littered with tedious complications -- rules to be followed in the course of the quasi-religious rite that will save Story's life and redeem those who save her. For bad measure, the filmmaker has thrown in a dyspeptic movie critic, played by Bob Balaban, who doesn't have a clue about movies, not to mention real life. "I'm seeing a romance film tonight," he announces prissily, "but it's not my cup of tea." This guy would love Scrunts and Narfs.

[JJ]

Harsh review - thought I gotta say that Signs and Village were crappy .. totally disappointing after SS and UnBreakable

[pieterSAN]

Unbreakable was an excellent movie. I thought The Village was not bad either.

[dextrous]

Unbreakable was an excellent movie. I thought The Village was not bad either.

the village, people either liked it or hated it...i liked it!

[dhruvdeepak]

just came back from watching 'Lady in the Water'. what a terrible excuse for a movie!!!
damn. The plot was incomplete, the characters and teh dialogue and the acting was amateurish. They did not bother to explain the whole story behind the movie. Any attempt at creating a mystical and mysterious atmosphere around the story ended up looking like something out of a children's book.
Children might appreciate the story. The only thing i appreciated was the hot chick (who is ron howard's daughter i think)
absolute trash. i had come to appreciate the standards of Shyamalan ji. 6th Sense, The Village and Unbreakable were class, and Signs was not bad either.
he was too busy acting in the movie, it seems, to actually come up with a viable plot for it

[Aloo Kashmiri Ul Haq]

thank god i didn't go to the premiere of the movie, i usually get invited to the premieres of his movie or rather my dad gets invited and takes me along
remember going to the premiere of the village and boy wasn't my dad pissed with the movie. nice chap though shyamalan. sad that we indians never brag about a director like him, all said and done his movies are with the weirdest plots and he is highly respected in hollywood

ps - did any of you manage to watch the trailer of the namesake, boy doesn't the movie look good, kalpesh modi (kal penn) in a serious role!