Lady In The Water

So I've just seen Lady In The Water. A film I was very excited about when it first came out, but which I lost a bit of interest in because of all the negative reviews. But still I really wanted to see it, because I loved The Village, which also got negative reviews. Now that I've seen it I can say the reviewers were probably right, I can understand that they've got some problems with this film, but it also makes me feel they didn't quite get Shyamalan's point. At first I thought some of the characters were kind of strange, I felt they acted a bit over the top. For instance the Chinese girl. From the beginning she is always very happy, acting almost a bit silly. But then as you come to understand that some of the characters living in the apartment complex are part of this story, this story of a girl who is called Story, and who herself is the story. She's the one who everything revolves around. She is the story's heart. As you come to understand all this you start to think about how when someone tells you a story, or you're reading a story, the way you bring the characters to live in your imagination is always very straightforward, very clear. So realising this I started to think about how the character of the Chinese girl, really acts as a character you could have read about in a book. The way she was played really brought together all those characteristics you normally read about and turn into this image of the character in your head. They always kind of appear as being comic like. So thinking about how I feel when I read a book myself, I started to understand the acting better and learnt to appreciate it more. I also have to say that I really enjoy to watch Bryce Dallas Howard. She's very intriguing and can look very mysterious. I loved her in The Village, and I again loved her in this film. She kind of scares you a bit too with her looks.

What is it about?

The story is about Cleveland Heep, the superintendent of an apartment complex. When at night he starts to hear someone's still swimming in the pool of the complex, he goes and ask some of the people living in the complex if they know who it could be. Because noone knows who's still swimming around when everybody else is asleep, Cleveland one night goes and take a look by the pool himself. The very next moment he is saved from the pool by a girl with the name Story. She says she is a Narf and came from the Blue World. Cleveland decides to take care of her and helps her to get her back to where she came from savely. With the help of a Chinese girl living in the complex he learns about the Narf and the story she's part of. Bit by bit the story starts to unravel and both Cleveland and the people living in the apartment complex learn about their bigger purpose and their part in Story's story.

Final Verdict: ***

Even though I liked the film, I didn't quite like it as much as the Village. And even though I felt I understand the meaning behind all of it, it still feels it has some flaws. The film is actually quite simple, but the way it is brought is done very nicely. I like when at the end everything comes together and that some things turn out to be mistakes made by the characters and it all happens to be a little different than they thought. This film is very interesting, because it's very reflexive. It keeps referring to itself. As a viewer you are watching a story. But the story itself revolves around a story and all the characters happen to be part of that story. So what you get is a story of some characters that tells a story about a girl who comes from the Blue World and who itself is part of a story which some of the characters from the film are also part of. So you have the characters acting out a story. The moment you as a viewer watch them they're characters from Story's story. But they're also part of the story of Lady In The Water which is telling the story of Story, a Narf. So what the movie does is showing how in a story characters are introduced and happen to have bigger meanings to the story than you expected. Also the Chinese girl each time tells a new part of the story to Cleveland, which is then acted out as he goes and look for the characters and talk to Story to figure out how he can help her. So, she's telling the story to Cleveland which is later told by the characters themselves as they come to be part of the story. All of this saves the film from being just pointless and really bad. You kind of have to look through it all to see the bigger picture. Then you will come to understand that this film isn't as bad as reviews make you believe it is. You just have to be open for it and put some effort in it to really get it.