CORPORATE LINE: 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. Cleveland and his fellow tenants start to realize that they are also characters in this bedtime story. As Cleveland falls deeper and deeper in love with the woman, he works together with the tenants to protect his new fragile friend from the deadly creatures that reside in this fable and are determined to prevent her from returning home.
THE REVIEW: Writer/Director M. Night Shyamalan has created a fairy tale—one that he originally created for his daughters. Unfortunately Lady In The Water isn’t exactly Brothers Grimm.
Sadly, Paul Giamatti isn’t given a great role. He’s supposed to be the hapless manager in charge of an apartment complex. The entire apartment complex has to come together to help the narf, the lady in the water, and it all has a very Wizard of Oz feel to it. You wonder when the dream might end or if it’s a dream or if it’s real or what it might end up being. With Shyamalan you are always waiting for the other shoe to drop with a big surprise ending—which has most recently been a let down.
FRANKLY: Shyamalan dispatches a movie critic in the film and its funny because in a way he is right that there are a lot of arrogant a-holes that review movies—I’ve met them. I’ve been there where they pooh-pooh a film without much thought. But with regard to some of Shyamalan movies, we do put him at a higher level because of the brilliance of the Sixth Sense. No one can discount how each successive film by Mr. Shyamalan has been a larger and larger let down. Every movie has a brilliant premise which means he is ever so close to making another masterpiece. I personally thought that The Village was absolutely brilliant in theory and painful in execution. The ending was terrible. Why this keeps happening is anyone’s guess. I have nothing against Shyamalan. I really enjoy his movies—but they aren’t great movies anymore. I think we are all jealous of his great success—that’s the honest truth—but unfortunately Lady In The Water still never captures the brilliance of Shyamalan’s masterpiece.
+ Charlie Craine
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.