movies: lady in the water

You know when you see the trailer for a movie and it looks really, really good, and you just hope that the actual movie will be half as good... Lady in the Water was one of those. The trailer definitely caught my attention, but then, just before it came out, I started hearing rumblings from the critics about it not being that great.

In some ways, they did have a point.

Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed the movie... but there was just something about it that seemed off... I tried to sum it up with Ma on the way home, but the best I could come up with was "self conscious"... the movie almost seemed to be aware of itself, which I know sounds strange, but it's the best way I can put it into words. There are points where it seems to be saying "yes, I know I'm a movie, and if you're paying attention to the fact that I'm talking about movies within a movie, and I'm actually predicting myself here, look at that... it all seems terribly clever"... only I'm not sure it does seem terribly clever... it just seemed kind of awkward.

And there a couple of spots where it's just trying too hard to be funny... and, honestly, I think that this movie might have played better if it had been approached a little bit more like perhaps The Sixth Sense... or just a little more "straight" and letting the comedy come from the realism of the situation, rather than feeling a little forced.

That's not to say that I didn't like the movie... I did... the "fairy tale" aspect of it was actually quite beautiful, and possibly the most "complete" part of the story (probably due to the fact that M. Night Shyamalan based the movie on a bedtime story he wrote for his kids), and in parts it was quite a moving and emotional movie (yes, I cried towards the end), and part of me does want to know more about the Blue World and the Narfs (although, seriously, could M. Night not have come up with better fantasy names than Narf and Scrunt and Tartuic... although the last one isn't too bad... but "narf" c'mon), perhaps because a fuller explanation of their world wasn't necessary for the story.

Bryce Dallas Howard was disturbingly ethereal as Story (again with the bad names), assisted partly, I think, by some very clever makeup, most notably the use of white mascara, and the fact they kept hosing her down... but as a redhead with very pale skin, she has that whole "other worldly" thing going on anyway. And Paul Giamatti was perfectly cast as the "everyman" building superintendent, Cleveland Heep... I think possibly the only other way they could have cast that part was to go with a complete unknown, like they did with the majority of the cast, which worked in the movies favour, because you weren't pulled out of the moment thinking "Oh, look, it's So-and-So".

Actually, most of the cast are excellent... with special snaps to Cindy Cheung... but I very much felt that the characters are people that you don't really like to begin with, but you warm to over the course of the movie (I'm not sure if that was actually part of the movie's intention, or just my interpretation... I'm thinking it's probably the latter)... during the first introduction to the apartment building and it's tenants I was kind of cringing internally a little... but by the end of the movie I was very much in their collective corner. The only person's performance I didn't really warm to was Bob Balaban... but then he was part of that "self conscious" issue I was talking about before, so maybe that was why.

Like I said... I enjoyed it, but I don't think that it was M. Night's best work to date.

yani's rating: 2 Madam Narfs out of 5