Drowning the Nostalgia
At the prime age of eleven, I dragged my poor mother and a friend to see the Night M. Shyamalan masterpiece Lady in the Water. I was so into this god damn movie, and at one point claimed it was one of my favorites. I remember being incredibly into the characters and the maze like plot. I was so into the story that I remember thinking “I want to make movies like this.” Ever since that day in the movie theater, I haven’t seen Lady in the Water. There’s no way in hell this movie could be as good as I recall it being, and every person who I’ve brought this up to, nine times out of ten, will admit to me that it’s not nearly as amazing as I remember it being. It’s time to decide this for myself.
After watching Lady in the Water for the first time in eleven years, I’ve gotten my answer.
The short answer: It’s bad.
The long answer: It’s pretty damn bad.
The movie opens with a voice over, telling the audience about a group of people who used to be friends with humans that lived in water. The kicker: They’re psychic mermaids. We then jump to current day, where Cleveland Heeb (Paul Giamatti) is the handyman of an apartment complex appropriately called, “The Cove.” The residents of the apartment building are tiring at best. When I was a kid, I loved how all of the characters were outlandish and different, now I just find their personalities boring and an all too easy way to tell the audience information about the mermaid beings, better known as narfs.
Narfs. That’s another thing. Who the fuck says to themselves, “You know what I’m gonna name my fictional mermaid? A narf. Yea, that sounds good.” The answer to that question is Night M. Shyamalan. He also exhaustingly named the grass wolves “scrunts”. Scrunt and narf sounds like something I would name my Invader Zim original character in middle school, if I had one.
Anyway, back to the bullshit that is the characters. Most of the residents of The Cove are unique and entertaining people. Some of them don’t speak English, one lady’s a superstitious old woman, another is Bernard from Westworld. It’s nice to see unexpected characters, but it’s lazy when they’re only on the screen for about ten minutes total. It’s kind of like “Look at me! I’m wacky and unique.” Night M. was trying too hard and I feel like I’m like in a world made by a middle schooler. Besides Giamatti and the mermaid, Shyamalan’s self-insert character is around too. What’s nice is the cast was pretty diverse race wise, even if they were sucky characters. (Their diversity, however, does not make up for Shyamalan’s white washed disaster, which was The Last Airbender.) A lot of the characters have bad accents and almost feel like caricatures at best.
There are a handful of moments that are inappropriately comedic and a handful of moments that are supposed to be funny but fall flat. In order to hear the story of the narfs, Cleveland Heeb eats milk and cookies and sits under a blanket to appear childlike to Mrs. Choi (June Kyoto Lu). While watching the movie, I pity laughed more than actually enjoying the scene. However, there’s a lot of ironically comedic yelling through out the movie, which sounds tiresome but is a nice change from the bullshit of it all. Also after hearing the line “He’s hearing God through a crossword puzzle,” I had to wonder what was going on in Shylamalan’s mind, let alone what these poor actors thought about this script. In hindsight, I’d willingly say something that dumb too if that meant I’d be paid.
In all seriousness, Lady in the Water has a pretty cool plot going on. I’m really into magical realism, and it’s a shame that it was executed so poorly. Like so many Night. M. Shyamalan movies, the concept is interesting but the movie itself just falls flat. I probably should have not watched this after eleven years. I should have just left it alone but that’s the price you pay for running a movie blog.
Besides, who names a mermaid Story?
