Lady in the Water

"Lady in the Water" not only adds to M. Night Shyamalan's repertoire of very odd movies, but also increases my growing disenchantenment with his storytelling.

Paul Giamatti stars as apartment superintendent Mr. Heep, a shy, stuttering man who holds a dark secret from his past. His life is filled with mundane daily activities of changing light bulbs and unclogging toilets for the residents of The Cove. This is also the highlight of his day, as each resident is more eccentric than the next.

Everything changes in one night when he discovers Story (Bryce Dallas Howard) swimming in the apartment pool. He soon discovers that Story is actually a Narf, a creature from the Blue World (the water) who is sent to help bring understanding to humans. She is being hunted by a Scrunt, an evil creature that kills Narfs. The entire legend of narfs and scrunts is relayed over the course of the movie through an angry Asian woman who tells the story to her daughter. It is up to Mr. Heep to figure out how to get Story safely back to the pool in order for a giant eagle to pick her up and take her back to the Blue World before the Scrunt gets her.

Yeah, it's really that messed up. It only gets odder as we learn that there are a number of residents who are actually destined to be part of the rescue process. There are the four guys who sit around and smoke all day, the old woman who wrote a book 20 years ago, a guy who works out one side of his body, and an author with writers block (Shyamalan). While it's been Shyamalan's habit to put himself in his own movies in small roles, this time he is a solid supporting actor as the author who can't finish his story.

One side of me found "Lady" to be interesting merely for the assortment of characters that has been brought together for this fairly tale/bedtime story. The other half simply keeps wondering, "What the heck was that?" I hated "The Village" and really didn't like "Unbreakable". So, in my ranking of Shyamalan movies, with "Sixth Sense" easily at the top, "Lady" falls between "Signs" and "Unbreakable". Fans of Night's movies will enjoy "Lady", but beyond that I'm not sure I can recommend it for you. I give this one a B-.

"Lady in the Water" is rated PG-13 with a running time of 110 minutes.