Acclaimed actor and director, Bob Balaban, stars in M. Night Shyamalan's “Lady in the Water”

Return to all articles »

STORY TIME
M. Night kills the critic in his supernatural children's story
By Jennifer Merin –

Lady in the Water
Directed by M. Night Shyamalan

M. Night Shyamalan's “Lady in the Water” began as a bedtime story for his kids. A tale of otherworldly beings sent to save and inspire mankind, it's the sort of story that aspires to become legend. The illustrated children's book version, spare and sweetly mythic in tone, takes 10 minutes to read. The movie, fleshed out with an assemblage of wildly eccentric dwellers of The Cove Apartments-including its disheartened, stuttering superintendent, Cleveland Heep (Paul Giamatti, fascinating and engaging, as always), and the otherworldly Narf (that's Shyamalan for sea nymph) named Story (Bryce Dallas Howard, convincing as an incandescent cipher), takes a belabored 110 minutes.

In the film, Story (who dwells beneath the complex's swimming pool) must accomplish her mission (to awaken greatness in someone residing at The Cove and help that person see and fulfill their purpose in life) before returning (via giant eagle) to her place of origin. This is a Story-both the character and plot-with big aspirations. Heep enlists The Cove's tenants to help by becoming Story's Guardian, Interpreter, Guild and Healer, and to protect her from the vicious Scrunt, a porcupine-like beast with glaring red eyes, grass growing on its back and lethally poisoned claws.

In Lady, as in all his films, Shyamalan's emphasis on story is emphatic. Not only does he name his lead character Story, he opens the film with narrated pictographs that reveal this tale's ground rules and internal logic.

As with other Shyamalan fables, Lady has a telling plot twist-but this one's so twisty, telling a bit won't be a spoiler (and may help decipher what's going on). Put simply, it's the misdirection of Heep's (and the audience's) assumptions about which idiosyncratic Cove dwellers play what essential roles in saving Story.

Heep's deciphering of Story-both character and plot-begins with Mrs. Choy's reluctant recounting of an Asian legend, her indecipherable words being translated by her modish daughter (hilariously charming Cindy Cheung).

Most essential to the twist is Mr. Farber (a never-better Bob Balaban), the film critic who's just moved into unit 13B and who declares his dislike for cliche films in which characters speak emotions and declare love for each other in the pouring rain. Heep seeks plot predictions from Farber – but misinterprets them. And Farber, having served his plot purpose, is killed by the Scrunt. Go ahead-just kill the critic! The Cove dweller to be awakened by Story turns out to be Vic, a struggling writer (none other than an expressionless Shyamalan), whose prophetic societal expose will-after he's assassinated (as predicted by Story)-change the world for the better.

Good Lord-just martyr the writer! By the way, in Lady, screenwriter Shyamalan does have the character of Story speak her emotions-”I'm scared,” she says repeatedly-and Heep and Story bid each other farewell in the pouring rain. Geez, didn't ya think we'd notice?

Shyamalan's appreciation for storytelling's import is admirable. Afterall, myth is civilization's connective tissue and legend instructs, inspires, elucidates, stimulates creativity, relieves tensions through entertaining escape and reflects society's deepest psychic needs. There are tidbits of all these lofty qualities in Lady in the Water, but incessant plot twist gimmickry keeps the story from reaching the level of legend. Fine performances, some leap-from-your-seat moments and a few welcome laughs keep the film from tanking, but it certainly lacks buoyancy. And I'm awfully glad I'm not Mr. Farber!