I was under the impression that the single-most destructive force on the planet was a simple Texan named Chuck Norris. Next to him is the power of the atom, which, when split, releases the primal energy of the universe into a mushroom shaped cloud of death, destruction, and nuclear radiation for miles and miles.
These elemental forces are merely prelude to M. Night Shyamalan’s script for Lady In The Water, which doesn’t merely suck; it actually sucks big time. Hearing the expository dialogue explain every jot and tittle of Night’s whacky fairy tale gone amoke, your soul is thrust–nay, flung into a black void of eternal night. Thank goodness I had a granola bar and a pack of bubblegum, otherwise I would have starved out there in the inky depths of a timeless and interminable hell.
That’s not to say the movie was all bad. It was mostly bad, with a side helping of not unbearable. The highlights of the film were the beautiful cinematography by Christopher Doyle, and James Newton Howard’s score, both of which covered up a multitude of sins in both writing and casting. The acting does service to the film, making the very best of a clunky and insouciant story, and a script that feels as real as the Michelin Man. Paul Giamatti comes away a hero, as his character Cleveland Heep, is as sympathetic as any come across this summer. He exudes a quiet warmth and a sad unspoken history, and his amusing stutterings hide a depth of despair that Shyamalan uses to good effect in a particularly noteworthy scene near the climax. Bob Balaban is also a worthwhile character actor, filling the big role of the hated Critic Harry Farber (clearly the butt of Shyamalan’s ire and directorial angst), but he manages to make the character worth watching, despite the obvious nature of his besmirchment in Shyamalan’s feckless hands. Even Shyamalan turns in a decent performance as the Vick Ran, a moody writer who is prophesied will create a piece of written work so powerful and provocative that it will change the course of human history, even influencing a future leader of the free world, though it is difficult to get past the smarmy, ego-driven claptrap that passes for character evolution, especially in Ran’s case.
However, the fatal flaw of the film is its script. It is, from the very faux-provocative narrative opening, expository and self-indulgent. Instead of images, we get words upon endless words, spoken by various characters, as Shyamalan attempts to convince us of the world he’s created and its particular mythology (which is, to put it lightly, ponderous). We’re confronted with words like Narf, Scrunt, and Tartutic, given a long-winded backstory through the mouths of Young-Soon Choi (Cindy Cheung), a “me ruv you rong time” style Korean girl, and her mother (June Kyoto Lu), but it’s all carbohydrates in an Atkins diet plot.
The premise – a water nymph named Story (Bryce Dallas Howard) residing in the swimming pool of an apartment complex filled with colorful characters, who must overcome some evil and return to her people – is mildly interesting and meant to be full of childlike wonder, but in Shyamalan’s ham fingers, plays like you’d expect a silly and pretentious plot to, without the charm of some of his previous efforts. Added to these shortcomings, the cast of characters is drawn into the plot to help Story with nary a question or plausibility check. All the residents of the apartment complex seem preternaturally aware and sensitive to the direness of the situation. Arbitrary rules guide the plot, with Shyamalan’s dialogue emerging like dictation, revealing characters and forcing the plot into turnings that seem unnecessary and contrived. In the end, we have little to hang onto that doesn’t smell of overt moralizing with no moral.
The script underwent some pretty heavy criticism from Disney’s Nina Jacobson, causing Shyamalan to take it to Warner Bros. in a fit of creative diarrhea. A major theme of Lady is that perhaps man has forgotten how to listen. Shyamalan should be more mindful of that the next time he receives script feedback.
Fringe Rating: out of 5