by Matt Barr

Water logged

Now I've seen Lady in the Water and read quite a few reviews (in that order). Here is what you'll learn from those reviews:

There is a new book out about how Disney balked at making the film and M. Night Shyamalan took it to Warner Bros. instead. This book portrays Shyamalan in a sometimes ridiculously good light. Example:

It's always bad when the artist overshadows the art. And that may be the case here. A new biography of him so flattering that it borders on hagiography nonetheless paints a portrait of Shyamalan as a thin-skinned control freak with an ax to grind who imagines himself Spielberg.

Seen through that prism, "Lady in the Water" seems like a semi-autobiographical rant by someone used to getting his own way.

Seen through that prism? Ok, don't see it through that prism. In a New York Times review that briefly actually talks about the film, Manhola Dargis writes:

Apparently those who live in the water now roam the earth trying to make us listen, though initially it’s rather foggy as to what precisely we are supposed to hear — the crash of the waves, the songs of the sirens, the voice of God — until we realize that of course we’re meant to cup our ear to an even higher power: Mr. Shyamalan.

Use a coaster, you're dripping. You'll also learn from the reviews that Night, who's in front of the camera in each of his films, gave himself a bigger and more important part this time. Example:

Generally taking bit parts in his films, Shyamalan here steps into a bigger role as a writer with an integral connection to Story. Given the nature of his character -- a man with momentous things to say about humanity -- you've got to wonder if Shyamalan's trying some mythmaking in his real life, with himself starring in his own fairy tale.

Why have you got to wonder that? Shyamalan's is a modest, believable performance as a scatterbrained, attention-deficit writer who finds focus. Pulling back, why does the concurrent publication of a puff book or Shyamalan's casting himself matter to the quality of the movie?

You'll also learn from the reviews, for the first time if you weren't paying attention to the early tagline of the film, "a bedtime story by M. Night Shyamalan," that this isn't a Jerry Bruckheimer movie or Batman and Robin Return Forever IV. Example:

Heep [Paul Giamatti] needs a heap of help just to figure out what’s going on.

Fortunately, an elderly Korean woman in residence knows all the details from old bedtime stories. What are the odds?

To protect Story [Bryce Dallas Howard], Heep and, we eventually learn, a community must come together — including a symbolist, a guardian and several folks forming a guild.

Can you believe it? The complex has one of each, and they not only are willing to help but — more important — are utterly convinced that the shivering, naked waif in Heep’s shower stall is who he says she is.

The reviewer wants this to be less like a fairy tale/children's story at its root. Why? No, Heep doesn't spend as long as Bruce Willis does in Unbreakable coming to grips with the supernatural truth, but Unbreakable was about Willis' character coming to grips with the supernatural truth. Lady in the Water is about a sea nymph, who turns out quite against her wishes to be among the more important sea nymphs, come to help save the world and end wars and needing to get back home safely. What would having skeptical characters who don't advance the plot accomplish?

You probably noticed that in a nod to old serials Raiders of the Lost Ark had something exciting happening every 10 minutes or so. I was 11 when it came out so might not remember critics' complaints that there needed to be more exposition because getting dragged behind trucks and buried alive that often is simply unrealistic.

But if you're making a movie that's a bedtime story for children (that non film critic adults can also enjoy) is it a failing that the characters don't act like Philadelphians, who in real life would probably throw beer bottles at a sea nymph, "should"?

We can account for a lot of this fairly easily. Is it that Hollywood is a place where large egos simply aren't tolerated? I'm pretty sure, no. Is it that theaters are overrun today with unconventional, formula-free, challenging stories? Probably... not.

A mild spoiler might be necessary to explain the animus, so stop reading if that bothers you. Among the characters in the movie is a film critic whose contribution to the nymph-saving exercise turns out to do more harm than good, because he thinks he's smarter than he is and that he understands what's "supposed to" happen in stories. He's rather messily killed when he tries unsuccessfully to save himself from an unpleasant situation by working out how he would escape in a horror movie formula.

There are probably few film critics keen on paying attention to the film and not the filmmaker after enduring that affront. Indeed:

Shyamalan egregiously reveals his self-image as a put-upon victim in the character of Mr. Farber (Bob Balaban). Farber is a loathsome book and film critic (perhaps named after the esteemed critic Manny Farber), based on a tired stereotype and clearly intended as Shyamalan's clueless retaliation against critics who have in fact been, for the most part, honorably fair in their assessments of Shyamalan's previous work.

This transparent petulance is beneath the dignity of a respectable filmmaker.

Suppose there is a moviegoer out there who isn't a professional critic and thinks the scene is funny. Is that ok, or no? More:

[T]he film critic, who seems to exist exclusively to dare folks like yours truly to pan the director's new movie under duress of subscribing to his cynicism, is almost puerile in his antagonism

Yes, it's all about you. (And big words!) Even Entertainment Weekly was rattled:

But while the subplot is an up-yours to actual critics and a wink-wink to civilians, the rise and fall of Mr. Farber results in something far punier: The amount of story time devoted to such an inconsequential naysayer emphasizes the movie's very smallness, and the inner creative discontent at its core.

(The same review contains this baffling line about the typical Shyamalan landscape: "a place where specially gifted Shyamalan kind of men sort out the real, true, and important from the hoo-ha everyone else is feeding them." Not one of his five feature films is described by this sentence.)

Junior, 11, loved Lady in the Water, though to be fair some of his reaction may have been relief that he wasn't scared much. My wife thought it was terrific, and was definitely prepared for it to stink (having read reviews in advance).

I thought it was very good. A little ponderous at times, often charming and funny. I heard one person in the theater say "that was so stupid!" as the credits rolled, but I heard dozens laugh and react positively during the film. Giamatti is excellent, Howard is somewhat wooden (she was in the beginning of The Village, too) but effective, and the characters inhabiting the apartment complex are all interesting and well presented. The myth isn't as intuitive and fundamental as Harry Potter's or Star Wars' (I mean, and Star Wars'), but nor will anyone laugh at you and think you're an idiot if you go along with it for the duration of the movie, like many critics seem to insinuate.

I look forward to seeing it again.

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