Lady in the Water (2006)

Good start, but then it gets ruined

everything you have heard about this movie is true.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

Is film is the worst of M. Night Shyamalan's films I have ever seen. The Six Sense was an awesome film, but the Lady in the Water just seems to feel improvised without a clear moral message to the audience. To me, it was a visual unrelenting rant without purpose. It bored me mercilessly. Not even the pretty redheaded (later in the film, blonde) Bryce Howard could save this film with her good looks. This film is really bad.

M. Night Shyamalan went for a meta approach to his fantasy film. The movie strives to deliver twists from the previous film but it fails on several accounts and ends up being rather dull. Cleveland Heep (Paul Giamatti) is the handyman around an apartment complex fixing broken sinks and killing pests. He has a tragic past that he doesn't like to tell the residents about. When a woman named Story (Bryce Dallas Howard) appears in the pool, she tells Cleveland extraordinary things that lead to a fantastical adventure.Hunting the lady in the water is the Scrunt, a grass-covered wolf. There are lots of rules and mythology brought into the movie but none of it comes to very much and the characters are almost as confused as I was watching it. The movie takes its time to introduce each resident living in the apartment complex including crossword puzzle solver Mr. Dury (Jeffrey Wright), movie critic Harry Farber (Bob Balaban), and the young college student Young-Soon Choi (Cindy Cheung) whose mother knows of a fairy tale and serves as an expositional tool.Check out more of this review and others at swilliky.com

What in the unholiest of hells was Shyamalan on when he convinced himself this could be marketable? That this unkempt cluster of indulgence and fantasy could actually work as cinema or entertainment?He has no idea how children talk. He has no idea how people interact at gatherings. He has no idea how human beings work, period. There is a difference between heightened reality and utterly unbelievable BS, and Shyamalan just kept digging farther down his personal rabbit hole until no one knows who he intended this for, unless his kids convinced him this was great storytelling, demonic trolls that they are. And on top of all that he wastes a perfectly good Paul Giamatti and a halfway decent cast, too.The fault is entirely the director's problem. 'Twas his story, his directorial decisions that utterly wrecked the storytelling here. James Newton Howard deserves an apology from Shyamalan for making a horrible movie set to his beautiful soundtrack. And the worst of it all is the movie is just no fun. It's all just rather sad, actually. It's impossible to laugh at this level of indulgence, even by Shyamalan standards.

I have to say, I was doubtful at first, but was quickly drawn in by the mixed media storyline, the world-class cast and truly enigmatic cinematography - it was surprising, refreshing and captivating to me … and I loved the whole symbolism drawn from an ancient fairy tale. Also the single setting around the apartment block felt almost 'Hitchcock' and I found quite some film-noir angles were used to great effect. The whole mood of the movie kept me engaged and that doesn't happen too often. Also the characters I found, were extremely interesting, even on a macro level. I guess to an audience that has already 'awakened' in some form - dare I say 'spiritual' - this movie is much more than just good fantasy entertainment. I find it highly underrated … so give it an 8 out of 10!