James Rocchi At The Movies

CBS 5 Critic James Rocchi On 'Lady In The Water'

(CBS 5) In a summer laden with big, dumb movies and low-risk sequels, what do you say about a movie like M. Night Shyamalan's Lady in the Water?

Lady in the Water isn't perfect -- far from it -- but it is trying to do something different. Any time Lady in the Water gave me something -- a beautifully-shot image, a quiet moment before panic, a quiet moment of significant feeling -- it took something away, too. I'd bump against a lumpy moment in the story, or stumble over another new plot element, or get another reminder of a theme or moment from one of Shyamalan's previous films.

Shyamalan burst onto the scene with 1999's The Sixth Sense -- probably the biggest 'young filmmaker who saves his
career with his second film' story since Lucas made American Graffiti -- and followed up with fable after fable with Unbreakable, Signs, The Village following one after the other.

But at a certain point, you have to wonder when a filmmaker's groove of familiar stories in familiar settings becomes a rut -- whether the location is Woody Allen's Manhattan, Kevin Smith's New Jersey or Shyamalan's haunted Pennsylvania.

Lady in the Water begins as Cleveland Heep (Paul Giamatti) introduces a new tenant to The Grove apartment complex -- the layout, the other tenants, the moods and mores of life in the building. The Grove seems nice, but it's an
imperfect paradise -- someone is swimming in the pool at night. Cleveland's trying to figure out which tenant is breaking policy … but the culprit isn't a tenant; the culprit isn't human. …

The nightswimmer turns out to be Story (Bryce Dallas Howard), a sea-nymph who, as it's told in legends, comes at times of need to inspire the humans who might change and help the world. Story's work is important -- and dangerous, in that she's being stalked by a terrible creature, with nothing more than myths and legends to protect
her …which is why Cleveland, unlikeliest of knights, stands by her side and swears to help her.

This kicks off a tale of hide-and-seek, as well as one of modernist brain-bending: This allows Shyamalan to kick in a jolt or a jostle or a jerk or two when our attention fades as his characters speak in hushed tones about long-lost fables and mystical beings. Shyamalan's got a talent for the supernatural; he's also got a weakness for it, and the story's roots as a fairytale Shyamalan told his daughters are visible every time the story sags or gets too crowded with new ideas and twists.

There are hints in the background -- news reports on TVs in the background, the whole Grove's coming together to save Story -- that Shyamalan has a thread of political commentary running through Lady in the Water. (Which would be nothing new for Shyamalan -- The Village may not have been a horror blockbuster, but it's one of the more
interesting pop-culture pieces of political commentary we've had in
the past 10 years.)

But it's just a thread; it's not strong enough to support the film, even interwoven with Shyamalan's capacity to time creepy moments and gorgeous cinematography from Christopher Doyle and a cast studded with likable, talented actors including Giamatti, Howard, Geoffrey Wright, Sarita Choudhury and Shyamalan himself. Lady in the Water is an
interesting failure -- which is a backhanded compliment most of the time, but during the summer moviegoing doldrums, can look more and more like a badge of honor.

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