m night shyamalan, like those folk in the village, isolates himself from the world at large, from hollywood, and does his thing in his own way, with nary a dissenting voice getting in his way--though his delivery of his latest script, it seems, wasn't received well by his people at warner. they thought him crazy, thought he'd lost touch with reality, with film, with, well, anything normal i suppose...
and, they were right
lady in the water amounts to a nice looking piece, but a self-indulgent, often silly, thing that makes itself up as it goes along, purporting to be about finding purpose in a world gone crazy (and we're reminded by every tv and radio in the background that the world is caught up in wars and rumours of wars), or some shit like that, even while the end of the movie puts to an end any purpose found within by any of the multitude of characters were get to meet (and, really, we do little more than meet most of them, shyamalan only allowing time to get to know a handful, including his own character (but i'll get to his character in a moment))
a fairy tale in structure, but far too complicated within to really work for children, i'm betting, and far too obsessed with bryce dallas howard's legs (not that there's anything wrong with that, in theory) as a constant reminder that she's wearing nothing more than a borrowed man's shirt, cause, remind us and remind us again, she's not human... cause she's got so few lines and so little to do, oddly enough, that we really need those constant reminders
then, there's paul giamatti's schlubbish caretaker, isolated even from the rest of the cast by living in a small house at the edge of the apartment building property, scarred by the trama of losing his wife, a la mel gibson's minister in signs, and his kids. and giamatti, as usual, puts his all into the role, makes cleveland heep into a real person, even if he then gets dragged into exposition scene after exposition scene--which, you'd think would be even more traumatic than losing his family, but no, apparently, saving the narf from the scrunt that wants to kill her so the giant eagle can take her away--seriously, that's the plot--we're supposed to believe is saving his life, even though it only supplies him a day or two of adventure, and localized adventure at that
but, there's another character worth mentioning as well. and it isn't the recluse who we're supposed to believe is a well respected old man, when he just seems like a crabby old hermit in his early scenes. and it isn't any of the other myriad of characters--not even the film critic, shyamalan's obvious attack on similar ilk in and around hollywood after his previous film was so poorly received, who tells us exactly how the film is structured, when important characters would have been introduced to foreshadow their later importance, and all that, even predicting his own surviving of an attack by the scrutn to be important later, then, surprise surprise, getting killed like all those hateful film critics need to be, apparently). no, it's shyamalan's own character, his largest role yet in any of his movies, a writer who's work is going to change the world. seriously, he's arrogant enough to cast himself as a writer who will change the world. i mean, i'd like to cast myself as that sort of thing also, in real life if not in a story, but, i don't know, i'd like to think i would have the presence of mind not to present myself as such to the audience with a big "fuck you, it's my movie and i'll do what i want" attitude. although, i do wish i could do a movie and be free to do what i want with it, i hope i'd have a better grasp of narrative structure, a better sense of subtlety, and, hell, the wherewithall to at least get a nice mermaid butt shot at least as brief as that in the disney produced splash instead of lingering so much on legs...
and what was with putting the camera in the position of story--that's the narf's name--so often? is shyamalan that desperate to speak directly to his audience?
and, why try to be clever about storytelling--the amusing back and forth and forth between heep, the korean student and her mother withstanding--with the critic's exposition about how the introduction of characters works, nevermind that cleveland would have been introduced to all the characters long before we meet them, and the critic's final scene, commenting specifically on film structure and unlikeable characters, only to die and turn immediately into a useless character, a misstep among missteps in a script riddled with them... and i think all that paragraph was supposed to be a question, so... ?
why make up your own mythology when you can discuss purpose and meaning much easier if you use something more familiar?
and why cast yourself when you can barely emote and just come off as a self centered, arrogant prick by doing so?
and, why build your own apartment building? were there none available at all in philadelphia?
and, why the fuck did you cut to the two villagers finding the costume missing when the drama would have been heightened by us NOT FRICKIN KNOWING THAT NOAH'S DRESSED UP?!
oh, scratch that last one. wrong movie