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!

Wow, people sure do hate this movie. I don't understand why it has engendered such hostility. I mean, I can see problems in the movie that people could object to, but people are calling this the worst movie in years and the like, and I find that completely out of proportion.

So here's what I think: Direction Shyamalan has made movies before featuring ostensible everyman types, but this time he has moved away from Hollywood-everyman to a genuine everyman by casting Paul Giamatti as a sad sack building super. Giamatti is likable and quite funny, and the movie starts off with a breezy humor that instantly made me like it.

There are problems when the plot kicks in with the appearance of a young woman named Story. It turns out she might be a creature called a narf from a Chinese fairytale, so the first problem is, narf isn't remotely Chinese-sounding.

Still, I liked the way the movie builds, as Giamatti tries to help her and discovers neighborliness and credulity aren't dead. I enjoy the movie's optimism about people even if I don't share in it, and I like the way he spreads his typical revelations throughout instead of sticking them all at the end.

While people have claimed the story is slow, I thought it was well paced. And while I can admit to many of the criticized plot holes, I just don't care; it had the feel of a little fairy tale of the modern age, which I found quite charming. And the movie is frequently amusing, which counts for a lot with me.

My main criticism is that Lady in the Water would be a much better film with two minutes taken out. Shyamalan decided to savage movie critics, apparently stung by the deserved panning of The Village (which inexplicably received more positive criticism than this film). That's fine in itself, but in one scene Shyamalan simply steps outside of the movie to make fun of the critic. In itself it's a rather amusing scene, but you don't carefully create an atmosphere and encourage a suspension of disbelief and then just shock the audience into the real world in a petty act of vengeance. Shyamalan ignores one of the fundamental rules of film making; if any scene, even if it's the best scene in the film, takes away from the whole, you cut it. I'm very disappointed in Shamalyan for allowing his bitterness to trump his common sense.

It's a small thing, and I won't say it ruined the movie, but it was jarring. And perhaps that's part of why the reviews are so bad, because that scene made people drifting along on the movie's logic snap awake and start thinking about everything that was wrong. Although that's just a theory. Anyway, cut out that two minutes and it would be a considerable improvement.

As for people complaining the movie isn't that scary, well, I don't think it was trying to be that scary. I do think the director's intent is more important than what he's done in other movies. Just because he usually tries to scare us doesn't mean he is this time; I think he was just going for some mild suspense.

Anyway, while others are saying Shyamalan has lost it, but for me he's been consistent; one good movie, one bad one. Sixth Sense (great), Unbreakable (tedious, but interesting ending), Signs (good movie, tremendous ending), The Village (wretched) and Lady in the Water (funny and charming).

So I don't have high hopes for the next one, but this one was quite enjoyable.

After the sixth sense people have been expecting M. Night to shock and amaze them time after time. This is of course impossible. He made signs and the village which had their twists but left the audience with more of an "oh yeah" feeling. More importantly though his movies have become deeper in their actual message, his newest film is no different. if all you want is the amazement of a twist your in for a disappointment. Instead look at this movie for the message of hope it leaves you with, or the humor that abounds, the great acting involved, or even the amazing visual style and suspense. but don't just sit in the theater waiting to be surprised, your just wasting your time and missing the point of a really good movie.

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.

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.