A Dama na Água

First off, I can see why this film is going to be a box-office flop and why critics and audiences alike will not like it. I, who usually disagrees with most audiences, at least, thoroughly enjoyed this film. The storyline itself is rather ridiculous, I must say. Some girl shows up in a pool? She's a what-a narf? I went into the movie thinking I would hate it, but I came out knowing that I had seen a work of art. That's right. It was art.

First of all, it's a good family film, with enough tense moments to keep you watching, and enough laugh-out-loud moments to calm you down. It was refreshing for once to see a film with good, clean humour. The dialogue was not necessarily hilarious, but the actors, especially Paul Giamatti (Cleveland) delivered the lines extremely well.

The acting was tremendously well done also. Paul Giamatti is always fantastic, and while Bryce Dallas Howard seemed to act in the same manner as she did in The Village, she was still convincing. The ensemble cast worked well together. Some might bash M. Night for casting himself in a not-so-cameo role, but he proved that he can actually act! No, his performance will not win him an Oscar, nor should it, but I think there is definite talent there. I hope to see him in bigger roles, in films not his own.

The plot had many twists, maybe too many, but no matter. I kept trying to guess what was going to happen, but it I was always wrong. It was quite interesting.

What most made this film a work of art was the directing. M. Night has a rare talent that will go completely under the radar for this film because no one will see it. The camera angles were inventive-that's right, inventive. I may be one of the few who actually cares about camera angles and how a scene looks, but it looked great. The final product was polished.

I truly believe this film is M. Night's best work. He made the story up himself, wrote a screenplay that made us laugh, smile, cringe, and jump just a little, and directed a great ensemble cast including himself. Quite a feat.

So before everyone starts ranting about how stupid the storyline is or how "so-not-scary" the film is, just appreciate the uniqueness of the film, and remember what makes this film good. Forget the crazy story. It's everything else!

If you enjoy fantasy movies with good acting and an imaginative storyline; you will enjoy this movie.

The entire movie occurs in one very large apartment building with very engaging characters played by well known actors.

A superintendent at an apartment building in a suburb of Philadelphia (Paul Giamatti) discovers an innocent redhead in the pool (Bryce Dallas Howard) who needs the assistance of several tenants to escape the creatures that threaten her and her mission.

"Lady in the Water" (2006) is a drama/fantasy based on a bedtime story that writer/director M. Night Shyamalan told his kids. Like most Shyamalan pictures there's a moving reverent ambiance amidst the amusing and sometimes horrific dramatics. It's very original, coming across as a Shyamalan flick mixed with elements of fantasy movies, like "The Wizard of Oz" (1939). Think about it, "The Wizard of Oz" meshed a family drama with a dreamlike fantasy involving wonder, humor and slight horror along with a profound message, and so does this film (which isn't to say it's as effective as "Wizard").

The set of the apartment complex and the cinematography thereof combined with James Newton Howard's score are all superb. Plus there are some amusing moments, like with the dour film critic (Bob Balaban). Similar to "Signs" (2002), there's a good theme about coming to grips with tragedy and moving on with a newfound sense of purpose. Moreover, Bryce is very appealing as the naïve fantasy creature and the movie leaves you with a warm feeling.

On the negative side, the somewhat convoluted fable will be less than compelling for certain viewers and some critics understandably complained that it was a mistake for Shyamalan to cast himself as the writer whose words are the seeds to changing the world, although it didn't bother me; I think he's perfect for the role. Still, M. Night casting himself as the savior of the freakin' planet is a tad pretentious.

The film runs 1 hour, 49 minutes, and was shot in Levittown, Pennsylvania, a suburb northeast of Philadelphia.

GRADE: B-

I can't rate this film.

When I go to see a Shyamalan film, I expect to be entertained and stimulated, but I never know exactly how this will be accomplished. Shyamalan's films use ambiguity aesthetically and he draws his audience through the seduction of interpretive participation. Of all of his films, perhaps Lady in the Water does this most profoundly. Although I understood the entire film - the plot, the themes, the method - I walked away asking "what the hell did I just see?" It's easy enough to categorize the film. Lady in the Water is an absurdist comedy. But it makes you ask yourself why you are laughing. With Shyamalan's talent as it is, it is impossible for me to believe that any aspect of the humor of this film was unintentional. Yet the other side of LITW is dark fantasy, in the tradition of Michael Cohn's Snow White.

With a cast David Lynch would have been happy with, Shyamalan tells a fable from East Asia as it is experienced by a superintendent (Giamatti) at an apartment complex full of mundanely odd characters. A strange and beautiful young woman (Howard) has emerged from the complex's pool, apparently seeking contact with the surface world so she can find folkloric archetypes who can protect her from the evil creatures that hunt her and return her to her world beneath the waves.

Giamatti, Howard, and Shyamalan himself are all very entertaining. Howard - a very unusual looking and uniquely pretty woman - is shot so beautifully that it is very difficult to take your eyes off of her. M. Night's performance is so bizarre, it is hard to tell whether or not he is acting.

LITW is definitely the strangest film I have seen from Shyamalan. I have been up and down with him since the beginning of his career, enjoying his early films, very much disliking Signs, and being impressed with the Village. I believe that with the Village and LITW, M. Night is establishing a new and unique direction for himself. And if he keeps going this way, I will gladly follow.

To start off with, I actually liked this movie, and at first I couldn't understand why some many people hated, but upon reflection i can see what some people reacted to so harshly.

One thing I liked about the film is the simple story, or more accurately, the atmosphere. M. Night has always been better at creating a mood than fleshing out a story, but the premise of Lady in the Water works for me: It about people reacting to a fairy tale happening in real life. This concept probably put a lot of people off, the fact of the matter is this concept hasn't been used a lot (but it has been done before, i.e. Peter Weir's "The Last Wave", a deeper and more philosophical film), and people aren't used to it. Like I said, I liked it, but most of my friends thought it was stupid.

The main thing that people hated was M. Night's own acting in the film, and on this I agree. He was without a doubt the worst thing in the film. It was a disgusting example of self-indulgence and self-importance, and more than that, he's just a terrible actor and he should stop.

The one thing that I really had a hard time stomaching was the extended sequences with the party band, Silvertide. They were so awful I wanted to walk out of the movie. Picture a blonde version of The Black Crows with even less talent ripping through and f*(^king up a version of Dylan's "Maggie's farm".

Those few things aside, the rest of the cast was great, I thought the story was simple and decent enough, the "film critic" part with Bob Balaban was funny, but M. Night was asking for it with that one, and the movie as a whole was entertaining.

M. Night started out as the new golden boy of Hollywood with "The Sixth Sense", but many have felt he's lost his touch. The truth is he hasn't lost his touch, he just hasn't grown as a director. With "The 6th Sense", "Unbreakable", "Signs", "The Village", and now "The Happening", he keep tilling the same field. it's getting old. "The 6th Sense" was great, mostly because it was fresh, "Unbreakable" was entertaining for me at least due to the comic book references, but "Signs", "The Happening", and especially "The Village" were just plain terrible. "Lady In The Water" was a nice diversion from his formula, but it's getting tired. Perhaps M. Night would benefit from directing a script written by someone else, and not built around some moronic "twist" at the end, and most definitely not acting in it.