SusannahLady in the Water
September 19th 2006 03:33
Lady in the Water
Dir. M. Night Shyamalan
Starring: Paul Giamatti, Bryce Dallas Howard, M. Night Shyamalan
I’ll start by saying that I was looking forward to this film because I quite like Shyamalan’s directorial style and I have enjoyed his movies in the past. But this one is a bit of self-indulgent twaddle. Paul Giamatti is a sad-sack apartment superintendent (complete with unnecessary tragic past) called Cleveland Heep, who happens to find a supernatural water nymph (Howard) in the apartment’s pool one night. She needs his help to fulfil her mission on earth before she can go home. There is a lot wrong with this film, so let’s break it down one by one.
The supernatural element. The idea for the plot comes from a bedtime story Shyamalan told his kids. Therein lies the first problem for the mythology is simultaneously bogged down in details while also being half-baked. I knew we were in trouble from the laboured opening animated sequence which is supposed to explain how humans and water Narfs (yes, Narfs) used to interact, but then humans stopped listening to what the water creatures had to say, and by the way we stopped listening, and the water creatures kept trying to reach out and humans, they just would not listen! When Heep asks Howard (subtly named Story) about her world, all we get is “I’m not supposed to talk about the blue world.” That’s it. Nothing about the land she inhabits, her people, why exactly a big green, badly CG dog (called a Scrunt) wants to stop her. Instead we get drip fed endless bits of exposition about how she needs a Guardian, Healer, Guild, someone who can decipher signs, someone else without secrets, and some other guy with a respectable opinion. And what’s with an aquatic being needing a giant Eagle to take her home?
For a film based on a bedtime story, Shyamalan really misses an opportunity to actually make it like a fable. There are only two supernatural creatures in it: a Naff and a scrungy. For a supernatural being Howard doesn’t do anything except look a bit ethereal and get rescued. A lot. She is one of the most passive female leads I have seen in along time. The film also looks ugly. I thought my eyesight was going, that’s how out-of-focus much of the first ten minutes was. The colours are all murky and washed out. Considering he had the same cinematographer who shot Hero, you think he could have made his film resemble a storybook more closely.
The Messiah complex. So what exactly is the incredibly important reason that Howard’s Narfy had to come to the human world? Apparently it is to find a writer. Does she act as this writer’s muse? Does she give him an incredibly important message to communicate to humanity? Does she even tell him about the world she came from? No, no and no again. It turns out that the writer character has nearly finished his manuscript. All Howard does is say well done chief, buddy, pal, slugger, champ, you’re on the right track. Keep up the good work. Hardly worth the risk of being offed by the skurkle. And who is this writer? Apparently what he is writing is so important that it will change the course of humanity. Who does the director get to play this pivotal character? Himself. That’s right, M. Night Shyamalan is the new Karl Marx, the new Messiah even: a man who will die for his message, but leave a great legacy. Come on M, you’re not that bad an actor; you shouldn’t keep selling yourself short like this. For once you should play someone important.
And then there’s the film critic. One of the people in the apartment is a film reviewer. Now we know we’re not meant to like this character because he is not that friendly, whereas all the other many, many, many characters are all likeable and quirky. Got that? Okay. Heep has to go to the critic for advice in order to work out which of the multitudinous support characters could possibly be the 1001 helpers Story needs in order to get home. Shyamalan decides to be clever and have the critic tell Heep who would most likely fill those roles according to movie logic. This is all fine, self-referential, gently satirical fun. Then the critic’s advice turns out to be wrong. And, when one of the characters learns who Heep asked for advice he says: “Who would have the arrogance to presume what another human being is thinking?” An unlikeable film critic, that’s who. But, considering that Shyamalan still manages to utilise every single character at the end of the film who appeared earlier, it is not actually subverting any of the laws of filmmaking the film critic raised. By the way, the film critic is the only character to die in the film. He gets munched by the scarffle. It’s almost like Shyamalan knew his film was pretentious piece of self-aggrandisement and wanted to get a pre-emptive strike in at the film critics.
It is not that Shyamalan is untalented. Inside this flabby, undercooked movie, is a good idea waiting to get out. I would have liked to have seen more made of the fable aspect, more supernatural creatures, and less of the director. If he had concentrated more on telling a fable, then he could have aimed it at a younger audience, along the lines of Labyrinth. As it stands it is too boring and scary for kids, too ponderous and uninvolving for adults.
Dir. M. Night Shyamalan
Starring: Paul Giamatti, Bryce Dallas Howard, M. Night Shyamalan
I’ll start by saying that I was looking forward to this film because I quite like Shyamalan’s directorial style and I have enjoyed his movies in the past. But this one is a bit of self-indulgent twaddle. Paul Giamatti is a sad-sack apartment superintendent (complete with unnecessary tragic past) called Cleveland Heep, who happens to find a supernatural water nymph (Howard) in the apartment’s pool one night. She needs his help to fulfil her mission on earth before she can go home. There is a lot wrong with this film, so let’s break it down one by one.
The supernatural element. The idea for the plot comes from a bedtime story Shyamalan told his kids. Therein lies the first problem for the mythology is simultaneously bogged down in details while also being half-baked. I knew we were in trouble from the laboured opening animated sequence which is supposed to explain how humans and water Narfs (yes, Narfs) used to interact, but then humans stopped listening to what the water creatures had to say, and by the way we stopped listening, and the water creatures kept trying to reach out and humans, they just would not listen! When Heep asks Howard (subtly named Story) about her world, all we get is “I’m not supposed to talk about the blue world.” That’s it. Nothing about the land she inhabits, her people, why exactly a big green, badly CG dog (called a Scrunt) wants to stop her. Instead we get drip fed endless bits of exposition about how she needs a Guardian, Healer, Guild, someone who can decipher signs, someone else without secrets, and some other guy with a respectable opinion. And what’s with an aquatic being needing a giant Eagle to take her home?
For a film based on a bedtime story, Shyamalan really misses an opportunity to actually make it like a fable. There are only two supernatural creatures in it: a Naff and a scrungy. For a supernatural being Howard doesn’t do anything except look a bit ethereal and get rescued. A lot. She is one of the most passive female leads I have seen in along time. The film also looks ugly. I thought my eyesight was going, that’s how out-of-focus much of the first ten minutes was. The colours are all murky and washed out. Considering he had the same cinematographer who shot Hero, you think he could have made his film resemble a storybook more closely.
The Messiah complex. So what exactly is the incredibly important reason that Howard’s Narfy had to come to the human world? Apparently it is to find a writer. Does she act as this writer’s muse? Does she give him an incredibly important message to communicate to humanity? Does she even tell him about the world she came from? No, no and no again. It turns out that the writer character has nearly finished his manuscript. All Howard does is say well done chief, buddy, pal, slugger, champ, you’re on the right track. Keep up the good work. Hardly worth the risk of being offed by the skurkle. And who is this writer? Apparently what he is writing is so important that it will change the course of humanity. Who does the director get to play this pivotal character? Himself. That’s right, M. Night Shyamalan is the new Karl Marx, the new Messiah even: a man who will die for his message, but leave a great legacy. Come on M, you’re not that bad an actor; you shouldn’t keep selling yourself short like this. For once you should play someone important.
And then there’s the film critic. One of the people in the apartment is a film reviewer. Now we know we’re not meant to like this character because he is not that friendly, whereas all the other many, many, many characters are all likeable and quirky. Got that? Okay. Heep has to go to the critic for advice in order to work out which of the multitudinous support characters could possibly be the 1001 helpers Story needs in order to get home. Shyamalan decides to be clever and have the critic tell Heep who would most likely fill those roles according to movie logic. This is all fine, self-referential, gently satirical fun. Then the critic’s advice turns out to be wrong. And, when one of the characters learns who Heep asked for advice he says: “Who would have the arrogance to presume what another human being is thinking?” An unlikeable film critic, that’s who. But, considering that Shyamalan still manages to utilise every single character at the end of the film who appeared earlier, it is not actually subverting any of the laws of filmmaking the film critic raised. By the way, the film critic is the only character to die in the film. He gets munched by the scarffle. It’s almost like Shyamalan knew his film was pretentious piece of self-aggrandisement and wanted to get a pre-emptive strike in at the film critics.
It is not that Shyamalan is untalented. Inside this flabby, undercooked movie, is a good idea waiting to get out. I would have liked to have seen more made of the fable aspect, more supernatural creatures, and less of the director. If he had concentrated more on telling a fable, then he could have aimed it at a younger audience, along the lines of Labyrinth. As it stands it is too boring and scary for kids, too ponderous and uninvolving for adults.
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