Lady In The Water
Also reviewed by:
Thomas J.
In Year 11 we had to undertake what was called a ‘Communication Project.' Basically, you could pretty much do whatever you like: from teaching a class of grade preps how to throw paper aeroplanes, to getting into the swing of your future university life and making a ‘Stop Uranium Mining' poster, as long as you were communicating something…anything. So me and my friends got a camera and just filmed ourselves goofing around doing stupid stuff, and handed that in. We said we were communicating ourselves. The teacher was forced to pass us, but he did say that the film was “the most self-indulgent piece of crap ever made.”
Well Mr. Wood, I think we have a new winner for that dubious honour.
It's funny what happens when talented filmmakers hit the big time. When great reviews, numerous awards, box-office success, back-patting from the suits, and fan-geek love all collectively and seductively stroke the ego of an artist. King Kong was an example of a filmmaker taking his new stature and freedom as a Hollywood heavy-hitter and making an indulgent 'epic' love-letter of a remake of his favourite film, but while Peter Jackson may have had me silently screaming ‘wanker' from my armchair, Kong seems innocuous enough when compared to M. Night Shyamalan's Lady in the Water , made by a Hollywood auteur that so heavily believes his own hype that he's made a film entirely about how brilliant a storyteller he is, and about how anyone who thinks otherwise deserves to be eaten by a savage beast.
I love, love Signs . Think Unbreakable is genius. The Sixth Sense : a true classic. The Village ...well...had great potential it pissed away with the crappiest, most laboured twist imaginable. Still, warning signs weren't yet flashing. A terribly contrived twist in a film does kind of ruin an otherwise enjoyable flick, but it doesn't quite hang a question mark over the whole career of the director. This film almost does. I won't go to the extreme of some reviewers who have been quick to revise their views of The Sixth Sense and are now branding it as little more than a fluke, but the mess of Lady in the Water does at least makes you wonder about the quality of his future output.
If he had just made a straight fairytale, laced with his inimitable knack for creating eerie and compelling atmospheres mixed with the beautifully grounded moments that populate his other films, then this could have been something. This should have done for fairytales what Unbreakable did for super-heroes. M. Night meets Grim brothers.
Damn that could have been cool. Instead Night has made a film about the art of storytelling that just happens to fall under the guise of a fairytale. And just to be blatant about this, he has called one of the main characters Story.
Story is kind of a mermaid without fins or a tail (so pretty much just a naked chick) who has come to our world looking for a writer (instead of vice versa, although a more fitting name for her might have been Inspiration or Impetus as that's what she's come to provide). This writer has an important story to tell. He is a writer whose profound words will one day change the world, maybe even save it. A writer, of course, played by Night himself. Hmmmm.
After meeting the sea nymph (it pains me to start using the absurd words Night made up for his mermaids and wolf-like beasts and thus validate his already bloated sense of self-importance) the rhythm of the film gets caught up in a dreary cycle. Heep goes to an Asian girl to get some information on the fairy tale that is playing out for real in his apartment complex, tries to interpret the story he hears, runs around getting other people involved, has a scary encounter with the scrunt (okay, I'll use his names, but I ain't happy about it), peeps in on Story having a shower, then goes back to the Asian girl and her mother for more information. This repeats a few times until the culmination of all of this is that they decide the best thing to do is to have a big party. And that's pretty much the movie.
The film only moves along because this Asian girl's mother keeps remembering more of the story to tell, and keeps introducing more and more "characters" that Heep then has to find to ensure the story plays out like it should and everyone gets their happy ending. In the film's most ridiculous moment, and it had quite a few contenders, Heep has to have milk and cookies and act like a child to coerce more of the story from the Asian woman. Why? Because Asian women are apparently both inherently wise, and also absolutely fucking loopy. That, or he's actually trying to make some wanky statement about the innocence required to believe in the power of stories and fables.
Ahhh, the Asian girl (hows that for a seamless segue!). Or rather, the Asian Exposition girl, as she should be known, as her dialogue is limited to interpreting her kooky mother's rendition of the ancient fable. Why didn't he just make it so her mother could speak English and save himself a character? Anyway, Asian Exposition girl finds herself routinely saying stuff like (in such a ridiculously over-the-top accent that you'd almost accuse her of racism even though she's Asian herself): "Mis-tah Heeeep, mother remember more. In fairytale there are bad monkeys who be like police to scrunts who try attack narf so she no become queen narf of blue world. Why? Wot you mean why? Oh you so fun-ney Mis-tah Heeeep."
The story she tells gets more and more involved - ridiculously so, for a bedtime story. Night just keeps making crap up, piling all these ridiculous plot contrivances upon each other until any magic his made-up fairytale possibly had is squished dead, and surely anyone watching is left rolling their eyes in confused stupor. I've heard reviewers, and indeed Night himself, say that people will have to really buy into the fairy-tale to enjoy the film. To surrender to it. Well it's damn near impossible to buy into something that never stops selling itself to you, as Night shoves his concept down the audiences throat at every possible turn.
This brings us (in a non-linear way) to the film critic character. Basically the reason for this film existing. Night's fragile ego must have been so spurned by the generally negative reaction to The Village that he has gone and written a film about how storytellers like himself are the soulful heroes of the world, while stuffy dour film critics are the villains, too cynical and bitter to see the pure beauty and powerful possibilities true geniuses like himself have to offer us through their art.
Instead of blindly praising his work, these film critics dare to be…critical…and since they tear him and his work apart, Night turns the tables and has a figment of his imagination return the favour, as his scrunt mauls the critic to death. Ho ho. By doing this I suppose Night has also tried to make his film critic-proof. I mean, if the critics hate it, well they would wouldn't they! He had a cinematic representation of them joyfully killed on screen! Nice try. Would probably help if the ‘nasty' film critic in the film was actually the nasty and bitter individual Night wants him to be - all he does to deserve his death is give Heep a lesson in character archetypes that Heep himself misinterprets. Oh, and he thinks all romance films are the same – WHICH THEY PRETTY MUCH FUCKIN WELL ARE and I will take on any scrunts who think otherwise.
While Night nicely incorporated some great splashes of humour in some of his other films, especially Signs , here his attempts at levity are painful and flat. A man who works out only one side of his body. A squabbling brother and sister. A room full of stoner uni students. All meant to be hilarious, I'm sure, but the clichés masquerading as characters that reside in this apartment complex have nothing even slightly amusing to offer. Also, the introductions to each of the large ensemble cast of characters are so bluntly pointed you know they're all just lying in wait to be called back at a later stage where their idiosyncrasies will be important at a pivotal plot moment. Take the kid who we see reading cereal boxes and saying mind-numbingly oblique stuff like: “Dad, this cereal box is colourful and supposed to make me feel happy, yet it makes me sad just like the time you forgot to pick me up after soccer practice.” Hmmmm…I wonder if a peculiar eccentricity such as that will come back into things later.
Acting wise nearly all of the no-name tenants are god-awful, although I reserve final judgement on their abilities for a film where they aren't weighed down with such portentous dialogue and non-existent character motivation. Giamatti is, as usual, very good, and it's a testament to his talent that he could actually speak such tremendous hunks of crap and not even come close to sullying his good name. Bryce hits what I suppose was the right notes, although for an otherworldly being her narf just seems so…damn normal, and wise to the ways of our world. For something called Lady in the Water you'd think he would get some mileage from the Fish out of Water situation, but no, this mermaid is using walkie-talkies within minutes of her arrival. Night could have created something interesting if it was revealed her knowledge of our world came from her people's version of fairy tales, or something, but no, apparently she knows all about us from “her studies” at Mermaid University . How alien. Surprisingly Shyamalan himself isn't half bad in his biggest acting role to date, but that he gave himself the second largest male role just shows this for the vanity piece it is.
Night should have given the role to someone else and focused the behind-the-scenes stuff. He should have delved into the Story more, in both meanings: the character and the actual tale her arrival sparks, rather than just throw made up words at us or prattle on about the mechanics of storytelling, which is essentially what he does. Note to Shyamalan: Just by commenting on storytelling and film clichés doesn't make it clever when you then go ahead and use them all in the most unimaginative way possible. Sadly there are no other creatures from the Blue World such as Believable Character Motivation, Strong Third Act or even the spritely Slightly Entertaining Elf to come along and help his Story.
Also, when you make up something that's so convoluted that you have to spend the entire film explaining it, at least make sure you don't leave some gaping plot holes lying around. Like: Why the hell do all the people in the apartment complex just unconditionally believe Heep?
“What? You've got a mythical creature in your bathroom? Take me to her at once!”
The girl looks pretty damn normal to me, albeit a half-naked albino one. Then again if someone showed me a cute girl wearing nothing but a business shirt getting wet in a shower I'd probably buy into whatever role-playing fantasy they wanted if it meant they'd let me join in.
And if you've just taken an hour-and-a-half of my time explaining all the ‘rules' of your made-up universe, don't then go ahead and break them moments later. Why does the scrunt, a creature so vicious it will stop at nothing to destroy Story (and is, as we are told, apparently scared only of two things: people with one arm bigger than the other and also monkeys made of bamboo) just stop attacking her and run off scared when the rotund stuttering Heep lumber after it? Why can it break through some doors but not others? The scrunt scenes are at times quite chilling, but we all know Shyamalan can create tense frightening moments with ease so it's hardly worth getting too congratulatory over (although it'd be great if he could stop using that shitty digital slo-mo he used here and also on The Village . Dude, it looks fucking terrible and practically negates any tension and scares).
Aside from the shitty slo-mo, Lady proves Night is still making some of the more aesthetically interesting modern mainstream films, as he messes around with focus to brilliant effect, employs risky framing that routinely blocks out his leads, and uses many long-takes that innately create tension and give his actors some time to shine. It helps that he has cinematographer (and all round crazy person as anyone who has read The Man Who Heard Voices can attest to) Chris Doyle to help him out. Doyle's ethereal lighting of the apartment complex gives us the impression of a mundane everyday nondescript locale that simultaneously hints at magic bubbling under the surface. Turn the sound off, or bring your ipod along to the cinema and you might even enjoy Lady In The Water . It'd be confusing as hell, but no more than it is already I'm sure.
A turd this may be, but don't write Night off just yet. Sure, this film is being, and will be continue to be slaughtered by critic and moviegoer alike. Even his hardcore fans, the ones who must acted like Shyamalan apologists when great chunks of the public turned against Signs and The Village will surely struggle to defend it. If his ego couldn't take the blow of a Disney executive telling him she “didn't get it” when the film was in script form (he left the company as a result), then how will he react to the overwhelmingly negative reaction to the finished product? Hopefully it will knock him down a bit, as a hit to his overly-inflated ego might be exactly what he needs to stop making films just for himself and return to making them for the audience that got him to where he is today.
Then again more bad reviews from those evil and bitter film critics just might inspire another pathetic cinematic retort such as this.