Lady in the Water (Shyamalan, 2006)

**1/2
With exposure comes expectations, and with expectations comes disappointment.

I admire M. Night Shyamalan greatly as a filmmaker … but his last two movies have shown a considerable drop in quality of direction. With The Village, Shyamalan frustrated the viewer with a lack of depth and a reliance on cheap plot gimmicks.

Some will insist that the failures of The Village were a result of Shyamalan tackling a different genre – but the same could be said of Unbreakable, which was perhaps his strongest film. The Village wasn’t terrible, nor is his most recent film, Lady in the Water; but neither scored much when compared to films like The Sixth Sense, Signs or Unbreakable.

Cleveland Heap (Paul Giamatti) is the lonely super of “The Cove,” a rundown apartment complex. He spends his days maintaining the building and chatting with the various racially-stereotyped tenants. His life gets a little weird, though, when he discovers a woman named Story (Bryce Dallas Howard) living in the apartment building pool. Story – who identifies herself as a Narf – immediately sets out to confuse Cleveland and the audience with her stories of fantastical things to come.

Apparently, Cleveland has to help his wet friend get home (to a place called The Blue World) by meeting her with a writer who lives in the building (actually, the writer is played by Shyamalan in the largest “cameo” role in history) and then sending her off with a giant Eagle who comes around to pick her up under cover of night. Unfortunately, there’s a wolf-like creature – called a Skrunt – lurking out in the grass, just itching to get a bite out of poor Story.

On top of all this, there’s a bunch of evil monkey things – called the Tartutics – that are supposed to show up at some point and enact “justice” on the Skrunt.

If that synopsis sounded confusing, it’s because it is.

With Lady in the Water, Shyamalan presents us with a fairy tale – a not-so-sleight departure from his usual drama or thriller. It’s charming at first, but the wild whimsy of the plot declines into utter silliness as the movie goes on; as more crazy characters are introduced and more details of the Narf legend revealed, the film becomes more and more ludicrous until it finally explodes in a big, hectic sphere of fiery confusion.

However, Lady in the Water isn’t without its redeeming qualities. Refreshingly absent is the obligatory Shyamalan plot-twist, which almost ruined The Village. The film is a bedtime story of such dreamlike substance that you can’t help but enjoy it. The characters are all likable and quirky (my personal favorite was the pompous film critic character), and they keep the insane premise grounded for the most part. Giamatti delivers a stellar performance, and Richie Cunningham’s daughter is becoming a versatile acting force.

Despite being a bit inane, and even though I felt like Shyamalan was just making the story up as he went along, Lady in the Water wasn’t a terrible film – Shyamalan’s sense of dialogue and keen eye for cinematography are still present – it just wasn’t a great one. But I haven’t lost all faith in Shyamalan or his ability, and I hope that he pulls himself out of his rut and delivers another great movie.

Though, for his next film, instead of making a bedtime story for his daughters, he needs to make a sequel to Unbreakable for me. Get on it, M. Night.