Lady In The Water (DVD)

...forward to the release of Lady in the Water in 2006, hoping that it would herald a return to form for the director. Ultimately, many were disappointed by what appears to be a fairy tale for adults, with a little bit of supernatural happenings thrown in for good measure. Having read so many negative reviews, I did not have high expectations for this film; perhaps for that reason, I didn't think it was as bad as many had made out. One thing is clear ...
...of people will either love or hate.

Paul Giamatti plays Cleveland Heep and is excellent in the role. Heep is a shy, retiring man with a painful stutter; he desperately wants people to like him and be happy with the job that he does, and so is frequently disappointed when he doesn't meet their expectations. I immediately felt sympathy for him and thought that Giamatti was completely convincing in the role. There is a depth to the character ... more

Cleveland Heep is the superintendent of an apartment building. He works hard to try to keep the residents happy and to hide the fact that he has a very sad past, from which he is seemingly unable to recover. He realises that someone has been swimming in the residents' pool at night, which is out of hours, and so tries to put a stop to it; but manages to slip and hit his head. When he comes to, he realises that he has been rescued by the night swimmer - a beautiful young girl, called Story, who is a character from a bedtime story trying to find her way back home. Unfortunately, her enemies are unwilling to let her leave Cleveland's world. Cleveland is determined to help her, and slowly ropes in the other residents to help. But can Story return to her own life? Or is she trapped in an unhappy existence in the modern world?

Directed and written by M Night Shyamalan, many film lovers were looking forward to the release of Lady in the Water in 2006, hoping that it would herald a return to form for the director. Ultimately, many were disappointed by what appears to be a fairy tale for adults, with a little bit of supernatural happenings thrown in for good measure. Having read so many negative reviews, I did not have high expectations for this film; perhaps for that reason, I didn't think it was as bad as many had made out. One thing is clear - this is a very odd film that the majority of people will either love or hate.

Paul Giamatti plays Cleveland Heep and is excellent in the role. Heep is a shy, retiring man with a painful stutter; he desperately wants people to like him and be happy with the job that he does, and so is frequently disappointed when he doesn't meet their expectations. I immediately felt sympathy for him and thought that Giamatti was completely convincing in the role. There is a depth to the character that is touching without being overly sentimental and I thought it was great. I can imagine, however, that some would find him annoying. It probably depends on expectations; Heep is very far from being a conventional hero and if that is what you are looking for, you will be disappointed. On the other hand, he is a realistic character, and if that is your preference, then Giamatti is fantastic in the role.

Bryce Dallas Howard plays Story. Visually, she is compelling. Very pale with ginger hair, she is almost ethereal, and it is easy to believe that she is a mythical creature. I'm not sure how much she actually acts though. She spends most of the movie looking terrified and speaking so softly that it is hard to understand what she is saying. I'm sure that is what the director wanted, but I did find her slightly annoying whenever she opened her mouth - I would have preferred to just look at her rather than hear her. This is a strange role - again, I think that it will divide most people into either loving or hating her. Unfortunately, I wasn't on either side - I found her character rather bland, which ultimately ruined the film for me, because I found it hard to care whether she returned home or not.

The rest of the characters, the inhabitants of the apartment block, are a strange collection. When the film first began, I thought that Cleveland Heep was a doctor in a halfway house for addicts of some kind - I hate to be judgemental, but so many of them exhibited odd behaviour. There is the man who works out just one side of his body; the collection of chain-smoking weirdos; a Chinese mother and daughter who have strange conversations and fight continually...the list goes on. Eventually though, we get to know them better and, despite their oddball behaviour, their existence begins to make sense, from the point of view of the story at least. I particularly liked Cindy Cheung as the Chinese daughter - she is quirky, but very down to earth. M Night Shyamalan himself has a role in the film; his character, Vick Ran, is a very serious young man who lives in the future rather than the present. He is perfectly competent in the role, but isn't particularly memorable.

This is one of those films that it is best to not think about too much before watching. It is quite hard to fit it into a genre - I expected it to be a supernatural thriller or horror, but it isn't really either. It is occasionally creepy, but not very scary - unless you find creatures made of grass and twigs frightening. It really is more of a fairy tale than anything else and is best watched without any expectations - very little makes sense, so just go along for the ride and hope that it begins to come together at some point. I'm not entirely sure that it did for me. There was much about it that I enjoyed - the first hour, for example, is really intriguing, and I really wanted to know how it was going to pan out. Then something changed and, although I wasn't tempted to switch off, it stopped being so interesting. I have to commend Shyamalan for coming up with such an original idea, but, like The Village, it starts out well, but fails to maintain the pace.

The special effects, in the form of wolf- and monkey-like creatures made of twigs and grass, are very odd. Clearly, they are meant to be evil, yet because they are part of a fairy tale, they aren't supposed to be very realistic. The special effects people/animators ended up coming up with some very strange-looking creatures that I found hard to take seriously and, coupled with Story's blandness, made it impossible to care all that much what happened. There is a streak of humour throughout the film, mainly directed around Heep's odd behaviour, but it wasn't enough to make the film come together for me. The last hour, which is more creature-heavy than the first one, was only just above tedious.

I really didn't enjoy the background music to the film. Written by James Newton Howard, it is instrumental, but felt as though it belonged to a Disney film made for children - and despite the fairy tale story, I didn't feel that it suited the film at all. I rarely notice film scores unless they are very good or very bad - unfortunately, in this case, it is the latter.

There are a number of special features. The first is an interview with Shyamalan who describes how the story came into being. This is probably the most interesting feature - I didn't realise that Shyamalan had based the film on a story he had written for his children and was published to coincide with the release of the film. Then there is a collection of six featurettes on every aspect of the film that you can think of - only worth watching if you actually enjoyed the film. Then there is the usual trailer, deleted scenes, auditions and gag reel.

Despite finding the film better than my expectations, I still can't rate it above average. It shows so much promise in the beginning, but it doesn't deliver in the second half. It is, however, original - or I think it is, at least. If you enjoy films that are very different from the Hollywood norm and don't mind that the storyline and the characters are distinctly odd, then you might enjoy this more than I did. If, however, you like your films to make sense, you'll probably want to avoid this. Personally, I thought it had some strong parts, just not enough to make it a good film overall. Recommended, but wait until it is on TV.

The DVD is available from play.com for £2.99.

Classification: PG (for some minor scares)

Running time: 110 minutes 

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