Lady in the water (2007)1

Lady in the water is not your usual sum­mer flick but that doesn’t make it any less a good movie. It is a movie that con­veys much more deeper philoso­phies and M. Night Shyamalan has bravely explored a lot of themes within the 110 min­utes. However, Lady in the water might not appeal to those who look at the super­fi­cial sur­face of movies with­out going deeper into the storyline. You need tons of guts and gump­tion to stitch a philo­soph­i­cal yet sim­ple film like this in Hollywood. Only a great film­maker can pull of some­thing like this with­out mak­ing it bor­ing and at the same time appeal­ing to the main­stream audi­ence. M. Night Shyamalan has proved his genius film mak­ing tech­niques once again. This calm and sooth­ing film is an answer to all those who demand their films to be intel­li­gent and worth think­ing about. The script and the per­for­mance by the actors is remark­able. The entire crew of “Lady in the Water” can take pride in the fact that they have been part of some­thing that is wor­thy and not in any run of the mill Hollywood flick. Shyamalan is one direc­tor who is excel­lent in thrillers and even does it in “Lady in the Water” with his usual panache. He has man­aged to add some thrill to the movie although it is not a thriller. When you watch a refresh­ing movie like “Lady in the Water” you begin to reflect on your own life as the story devel­ops. Right from sixth sense to signs and now Lady in the water, Shyamalan has again man­aged to estab­lish a rela­tion­ship with his audi­ence. As the audi­ence, we are not only able to feel for the char­ac­ters .We are able to con­nect with them in a level that reminds us of our own lives. Our movie expe­ri­ence is brought to a whole new level. Paul Giamatti has given a great per­for­mance as Cleveland Heep, the care­taker of “Cove” an apart­ment com­plex. It’s a breath­tak­ing and bril­liant per­for­mance as a doc­tor who has lost his fam­ily but who still con­tin­ues to serve oth­ers. The movie begins like a visual bed­time story in a charm­ing way. Stick fig­ures give a kick start to the movie by reveal­ing one of the themes of the movie that “man has for­got­ten to lis­ten”. Man and the sea bound narfs had once a very close con­nec­tion but man’s desire to “own every­thing” made him for­get them. The narfs didn’t lose hope in man and con­tin­ued to send their chil­dren to the world to awaken a few cho­sen peo­ple. After this scene every sen­si­ble movie buff will know that this is not your usual sum­mer film. The movie begins when Cleveland Heep finds an oth­er­world water nymp named Story (Bryce Dallas Howard) in the pool. Story is not your ordi­nary fan­tasy movie char­ac­ter. Story does not only add inter­est to the movie she makes us think about our own lives too. Bryce Dallas Howard has done a ter­rific por­trayal as a quiet “madam narf”. Her body lan­guage and expres­sions are excel­lent. Story “awak­ens” one of the char­ac­ters who is played by M.Night Shyamalan. His cook­book will one day be used by a great leader to change the world. The “awak­en­ing” might in fact be our own real­iza­tion of our pur­pose in life. The film’s theme is about our undis­cov­ered pur­poses in life. Such a deep theme might not be appeal­ing to the masses who are only inter­ested in the super­fi­cial ele­ments of the film. The film devel­ops with the intro­duc­tion of the other char­ac­ters who live in the “Cove”. The char­ac­ters Yung Soon and her mother seem to pro­vide com­edy in the film. The stereo­typ­i­cal por­trayal of a Chinese fam­ily is really funny. The many char­ac­ters in the film add vari­ety to the story. I think this movie is very apt for the con­di­tion the world is in now. Man has truly for­got­ten to lis­ten and there is war and destruc­tion every­where. After watch­ing this movie, you will definetly stop and reflect on your own life and pur­pose. A per­sonal favorite char­ac­ter of mine would be the char­ac­ter of the film critic. I think M. Night Shyamalan had enough of those film crit­ics who crit­i­cize his work when they cant event take some­thing as great as his. The film critic talks as if he knows how each and every film is made in the world. The scene where he is killed is really funny because he assumes that he wont be killed because this is a fam­ily film. All the char­ac­ters have depth and add mean­ing to the sto­ry­line. There are no unnec­es­sary char­ac­ters in the film. That’s what makes “Lady in the Water” such a spe­cial film. The story is mainly about how Cleverland helps Story to get back to the blue­world with the help of the many peo­ple liv­ing in his apart­ment. However, there are many deep philo­soph­i­cal under­ly­ing themes in the movie which make it such a clas­sic film. The movie ends when every­one real­izes their pur­pose in life and the giant eagle brings back Story to the blue world. The tar­tu­tic (big hairy mon­keys) destroy the scrunt. “Lady in the Water” is a story within a story. It is a really big and deep story that is told in a sim­ple way almost like a bed­time story for kids. It is a story which goes inside the pages of a fan­tasy book, giv­ing life to the myth­i­cal char­ac­ters and the seem­ingly ancient alle­gories. People seem to for­get that this movie could have very eas­ily been a bor­ing movie but not even one frame in Lady in the water is bor­ing. M. Night Shyamalan’s unique way of sto­ry­telling is evi­dent in this film. It takes courage to take such a dif­fer­ent and inspir­ing sto­ry­line in Hollywood. It surely takes guts to take a movie like “Lady in the water” and hats off to the entire team of “Lady in the Water”. M. Night Shyamalan is prov­ing that he is grow­ing with every film. His dis­tinc­tive and unique style of movie mak­ing is some­thing def­i­nitely worth watch­ing in the big screen. M. Night Shyamalan has showed that he is among the most promis­ing avant garde direc­tors of our time! This review was writ­ten by Vani Nagamuthu. We can’t find her details right now. So if you want to con­tact her, start flip­ping through the yel­low pages.