Lady in the Water (2006)

It can't be much fun being M Night Shyamalan right now. Every director turns out a bad film once in a while, but rarely does that become an excuse for the sort of character assassination and rewriting of film history that we've witnessed with the release of Lady in the Water. For a classic example, take a listen to the podcast from the folks at The AV Forums where a round table discussion on the director's work not only dismisses everything he's ever done, but seems to think that guessing the twist in The Sixth Sense automatically means it was a truly dreadful film. Hellooooooo???!

In fact, I think Lady in the Water shows the same fault that's been there in all the basic material since The Sixth Sense - an inability to deliver a good ending to a story, although this time around the story being told suffers some pretty basic weaknesses too. Regardless of whether or not you guessed the twist The Sixth Sense was a cracking good yarn. In fact, I can distinctly recall sitting in the theatre watching the film at the point before the twist is revealed, although I'd been told one was coming, thinking 'Well even if that's it and the twist is rubbish there's no doubting this has been a really well-made film'.

The diretor's second film, Unbreakable, had the same solid quality of film-making, and a great story at its heart, but relied too much on a twist that didn't really complete the story. When it was revealed, one expected some resolution to the story that had gone before it, only to find the credits rolling before one even had time to take it in. As a result one left the theatre feeling unsatisfied and, it must be said, rather cheated.

Signs was even worse. I can remember as a young kid feeling really bad about having written a school essay (a fictional story) that was a bad rip-off of a B-movie film called The Blob (or something similar about an alien menace that attacked the Earth). My really weak conclusion to the story was that the alien died when it landed in a swimming pool, with a rather pathetic explanation that the aliens were allergic to water. That was bad even for a twelve year-old, but to find it as the 'conclusion' to a major Hollywood motion picture starring Mel Gibson just seemed REALLY pathetic, and although the film was saved to a certain extent by its cast and cinematography, one felt that maybe story telling wasn't Shyamalan's forté after all!

The Village received some terrible reviews, and the honeymoon period with the critics, after the surprise breakout debut film from the director, was very clearly over. Yet despite the weak twist which, this time I DID see coming, I thought the film held up well on most fronts - the basic story was solid, the acting and cinematography were first class, and the twist really wasn't the main be-all and end-all of the story the way the most severe critics seemed to think it was. Not a great film, but not a bad or even an average one either.

And now we have Lady of the Lake - dead long before arrival, thanks to preview screenings, based on a rather silly fairy story (Shyamalan rather foolishly keeps referring to it as 'a mythology' - the man is his own worst enemy!) that he used to tell his very young kids at bedtime. With silly invented words like 'narf' (surely SOMEONE could have pointed out to him how alarmingly close to the word 'naff' that is!) to describe the nymph who is at the heart of the story, it's not hard to see why the words 'pretentious' and 'rubbish' seem to be the most oft-used by those reviewing the film.

I won't bore you with the plot, other than to give the broad brush-stroke outline that this is about a mythical princess nymph (played by Bryce Dallas Howard, Ron Howard's daughter, last seen playing the lead in The Village) and her relationship with an apartment manager (played by Paul Giamatti), who's rather given up on life, and the quirky personalities that make up the tenants of the block he manages. The nymph is being hunted by more mythical creatures, shadowy figures that look like wolves made of grass, to stop her fulfilling her destiny of becoming princess.

If you think that sounds like a load of 'tosh, gibberish and nonsense', as R F Delderfeld used to say, you'd be right, and it's not helped by the pretentious language Shyamalan has invented. The man is clearly no Tolkien, and not even a second-hand J K Rowling. When you add in the absurdity of trying to match everyday tenants that are supposed to be steeped in reality to the roles of traditional fantasy clichés) things start to fall apart very quickly.

But things get worse! To say the pacing of the film is slow is an understatement, and the murkiness of the picture palette, not helped any by the high definition transfer as one might have hoped, certainly don't help suppress the feeling of boredom and gloom that permeate the film. Alas, this really is the weakest film in Shyamalan's repertoire to date and one can totally understand the Disney head who told him he hadn't made a very good film and that she just didn't "get it", only to find him launching a written bitch-fest about her and Disney by way of mature response.

All that being said, there are SOME things to like about the picture, and I'd argue that it's not quite as bad as most seem to have made out. Paul Giamatti is superb, and believable for every second he's on screen - no mean achievement given some of the lines he has to deliver. Bryce Dallas Howard also has presence in a role that really asks her to do little more than look mysterious and confused. Most of the vitriol aimed at the film has been centred around Shyamalan's casting of himself ('ego run amok!') in the role of a tenant writer who is going to do great things in the future. Admittedly this 'get the director to do a cameo' nonsense has escalated with each of his pictures, to the point where he's now casting himself in a major role with lots of screen time, but on the other hand, he's believable in the role (which is not a demanding one), so there's no real damage done.

My main disappointments with the film, aside from the dreadfully childish and pretentious plot, is with the cinematography. I'm sure the dark green/dark blue 'sea water' palette was intentional, but it just makes for a repressive and dull picture. If you're looking for a cinematic experience this isn't it, with even the special effects work relegated to 'let's make it so hard to see people won't know if it's good or bad' rendering unless you are quick and have a freeze frame button (see screencap below!)

The HD-DVD is presented as a 'combo' release, which means that you get the standard HD-DVD region free version on one side of the disk, and a standard definition Region 1 version on the other. As far as I'm concerned these are the spawn of the devil, and it's a relief to see that UK releases which are only now beginning to trickle onto the market, are taking what are 'combo' releases Stateside and turning them into HD-DVD one-sided releases here. The marketing idea is that if you are not ready for HD-DVD yet you can pay twice the price of a normal DVD now and have something to watch today, but which you can play in high-def in the future. Is anybody interested? For those who have taken the gamble on HD-DVD sticking around for a while these releases add insult to injury by ramping up the price (combo disks are ALL several pounds more than their HD-DVD -only counterparts) and giving us a 'standard' DVD version that won't work on most UK players anyway. Worse, the only way to tell which side of the disk is which is to squint at minute writing on the inside rim of the spindle, because the ability to put a label on the disk is lost.

Extra's wise this is a bit of a disappointment for such a highly-priced 'day and date' release (the UK Region 2 DVD of this title hits stores this coming Monday). Some of the features are presented in wide screen high definition, but others are in standard 4:3 480i definition. Thankfully the 'six part' documentary that is effectively an on-set diary of the progress of the film that runs for over an hour is in high definition widescreen format, and is more interesting than the main feature, although that's not saying much and there are times when it feels like they just decided to use all the footage they had rather than edit things down into a tight documentary.

There's no director's commentary, which means of course that there's no reaction or even acknowledgement of the worldwide critical mauling the film received on its theatrical release. There is a Gag Reel which only lived up to its title by the fact that it really DID make want to physically gag - it is totally unfunny and, frankly, completely pointless. The Additional Scenes are not so much deleted scenes as existing scenes with a few extra seconds tacked on - as if sitting through this stuff the first time wasn't enough! Theatrical trailers round out the package.

Lady in the Water isn't as bad as most people have made out. But it isn't very good either. Only time will tell if this really is the end of Shyamalan's film career, as some have indicated. If you absolutely loved the writer/director's previous films then this is probably worth a rental. But if you're not a big fan of Shyamalan's previous efforts you are best advised to give this one a miss, as it's by far the weakest in his canon.