While I would prefer not to discuss writer/director/star M. Night Shyamalan�s role too deeply it is almost impossible to review one of his films without focusing squarely on the man. It is he who has solely written and directed every one of his five feature films to date, creating such an individualistic air of mystery and suspense that he probably has a greater single following than any other working director. His reinvention of the dramatic final twist enlivened The Sixth Sense, made Unbreakable his best work yet, and was also used, appallingly however, in The Village. While I have been greatly disappointed by his last two films, Signs and The Village, I always hold out hope that he�ll rediscover his touch and dazzle us once more.
Lady in the Water is not that film, though it is better than it was given credit for and a notch or two higher up than the aforementioned last two. Shyamalan has again crafted a creepy, sinister world within our own, complete with magical creatures and a plot that requires unlikely heroes and mystical revelations. It is the story of, er, Story (Howard), a narf or sea-nymph who saves Paul Giamatti�s building superintendent from drowning one night and whose presence profoundly affects him and the other residents of the building. After Cleveland (Giamatti) learns of the truth of her existence from a wizened old Korean woman he sets about saving Story from a predatory wolf-like creature sent to kill her, and promises to return her to her own realm, the blue world.
Shyamalan�s voice runs throughout the film, and not merely because he wrote and directed it. He has always taken small parts in his own films, but with Lady in the Water he has gone above and beyond, crafting for himself the role of a writer, a man Story must meet to clear his thoughts and allow him to create something of great importance. Of course it is easy to see Shyamalan as his character, a misunderstood man whose genius will be hated at first but understood and cherished later on. In this his ego runs amok and it is no wonder there was such reluctance on Disney�s part to give him the go-ahead. Any writer who makes himself the center of a fictional story in order to trumpet his own achievements is on shaky ground, and it has obviously been hard for some people to get beyond this.
I actually didn�t have as much of a problem with it; there were far bigger problems at play, problems that have haunted Shyamalan since his break-out. For one thing the man�s imagination is far greater than his ability to work around the problems that emerge in the narrative. In Signs his alien revelation was so absurd as to negate the whole creepy atmosphere he�d done so much to create, and The Village suffered from exactly the same problem: a superb build-up completely undone by a ludicrous ending. In Lady in the Water he has moved away from the all-encompassing twist but still relies on a plethora of vaguely unbelievable deus ex machina�s to allow the plot to work. This just seems like lazy, rushed filmmaking to me and does nothing to instill any serious flow to the proceedings.
His characters are also mostly weak, with the exception of Giamatti of course and the ever-improving Bryce Dallas Howard. Howard is increasingly becoming a secondary Cate Blanchett, ethereal and beautifully fragile, and is well-cast as the vulnerable narf. Beyond this though Shyamalan�s ability evaporates. He himself is no actor and should stick to cameos, while poor Bob Balaban, though well-cast, is stuck with the poorest role, that of Mr Farber the unpleasantly droll film critic in 13b, a clear fop for all of Shyamalan�s recent troubles with movie reviewers. All the other characters existences are there merely to service the plot, deus upon deus, but without any of the threading that is required to tie them believably into the plot. Once again Shyamalan has fumbled an otherwise impressive opening. I for one still hold out hope that he can regain his lustre though, if only because his imagination, however flawed, is practically the only one still operating in today�s Hollywood. |
