Lady in the Water

last updated 8 January 2015

Not content to simply place himself, Hitchcock-style, into his own films, M. Night Shyamalan has finally done the thing he's been wanting to do all along, said Manohla Dargis in The New York Times. He's made a film entirely, embarrassingly for and about himself. Lady in the Water was invented as a bedtime story for his two daughters—and it plays that way. The movie 'œhas the baggy, meandering structure of a parental yarn invented on the fly,' and lacks the twist ending that made Shyamalan's The Sixth Sense worthwhile. Yes, this pretentious film marks his 'œofficial leap off the deep end,' said Dana Stevens in Slate.com. As director, producer, screenwriter, and actor in this movie, Shyamalan deserves the blame for an incomprehensible plot about a water nymph (a 'œnarf') who rises from an apartment building pool to urge one of its inhabitants to finish his book, a work of genius that will one day change the world. Who plays that brilliant teller of tales? You guessed it—Shyamalan himself, whose stiff performance is distracting and unintentionally funny. It's a shame the misguided auteur had to dim the shining performance of Paul Giamatti, said Joe Morgenstern in The Wall Street Journal. It takes quite a presence to deliver lines like, 'œWhat happens when a narf gets scratched?' and retain a measure of dignity. 'œOne's heart goes out to the superb actor charged with speaking them.'

Rating: PG-13