Review

Review Date: 24-July-06
Spoiler Rating: Medium
Juju Judgment: Juicy

Lady in the Water (2006)

"Lady in the Water" is a curious movie. I don't mean curious like the "Ooh, he's a ghost!" sensation of "The Sixth Sense" or the "What's in and beyond the woods?" thrill of "The Village," two other films by M. Night Shyamalan. I mean curious like seeing a bearded old man walking down the street in a kilt. Or for a more accurate metaphor, a bearded old man walking down the street in a kilt talking on a cell phone. The movie has a veneer of the modern but is unusually traditional at heart.

Shyamalan reportedly invented "Lady in the Water" as a bedtime story for his children, which means that despite the intimations of the second trailer it contains neither horror nor gore. The film relates how a heartbroken man named Cleveland Heep (Paul Giamatti), who superintends a large apartment complex, discovers a mysterious young woman in the swimming pool and becomes her champion. This lady (Bryce Dallas Howard) looks human but is in fact a "narf" hailing from the "Blue World" (i.e., Earth's ocean realms), who has traveled to the apartments on a very important mission. But she hasn't come alone. Evil in the form of a grass-backed wolf has followed intent on killing her before she can return home. With the help of a Chinese mother and daughter, Cleveland learns about the narfs and their goals (this being the subject of a Chinese folk tale) and enlists other residents of the building to shield the lady as she tries to complete her mission. Mistakes are made and lives put in peril, but hope, ancient law, and teamwork carry the day.

Along with the pleasant surprise at seeing something so old-fashioned in the theater, I enjoyed the picture's theme of solidarity among trusting strangers. Cleveland offers protection to his strange guest out of a visible combination of chivalry and paternal instinct (about which we learn more as the movie progresses), and the others to whom he applies respond with instant concern and minimal doubt. (The supporting cast includes Jeffrey Wright, Sarita Choudhury, Cindy Cheung, Mary Beth Hurt, and Shyamalan himself.) The best scenes involve a host of characters gathering to determine their next move and to figure out the role that each is destined to play. The story suggests that we all have a purpose in life, which, while not always easy to understand, will impact others and is therefore always worth searching for.

The weaker parts arise when Shyamalan seems to be living up to (or reveling in) his reputation as a mastermind of mystery. His cleverness mostly appears with a humorless movie critic (Bob Balaban) who pontificates on the development of dramatic personae and the unlikelihood of the fantastic in the real world. I suppose this character's own dramatic arc is meant to quash fairy tale scoffers and/or critics like me, which is fair enough. But its effect is jarringly modern.

However, "Lady in the Water" overcomes its occasional incongruities in tone. I approve of it largely because I approve of its existence. I'm glad somebody still wants to tell stories like this and still can through the medium of cinema.

Copyright © 2006 The Jujube (M. I. Kim). All rights reserved.