Lady In The Water

Hmm I can't say much good about this movie, and I even loved the Village and his previous works...

Spoiler:

It's not that I have problems with the fairy tale, you can invent all the creatures you want, it's just that I can't allow myself to be absorbed into the film which has multiple adult human beings treating the fairy tale with utter seriousness and like it's one of the most important things to ever happen in their lives. You can't make a kid's bedtime story into a serious drama for adults and on top of that even try to weave deep and universal spiritual themes into it. It's not happening.

It didn't help that the movie seemed to have a secondary purpose of lashing out at critics for painting him as a one-trick pony and trying to prove himself capable of making a "serious" (non-twist?) film. Sadly I would've defended him against their attacks on all of his previous movies because I see a lot more merit in them than just a twist, but I won't defend him here -- they are justified in whatever negative things they have to say about this one, except the music which was the only good thing for me. I'm sure Shyamalan can enjoy this movie because he seems to have made it for himself, but for that reason I'm very surprised that anyone else can.

On other fronts there was a criminal squandering of potential on Bryce Howard's role, who is given nothing to work with and sits around in a catatonic state the entire movie. After her performance in the Village being so awesome, seeing her do pretty much nothing here was depressing. And the first 30 mins to an hour has so many long pauses and periods of nothing between (mostly poor and unnatural) dialogue I was cringing. During the climax of the film when Heep is healing Story I was about ready to walk out of the theater because the film reached a critical mass of disconnection from what Shyamalan probably wanted me to be feeling and what I was not feeling.

Well, here's hoping The Fountain, The Prestige and Children of Men can make up for this one.

Jam it back in, in the dark.