SYNOPSIS

Most filmmakers use the first 20 minutes of a movie to introduce the audience to the characters, give all the needed background information, and clue us in on where things are headed. M. Night doesn’t follow that pattern, doling out the details more gradually. For maximum enjoyment, it’s best not to know a thing about one of his films before you see it. We won’t give much away in this synopsis, but if you’d rather let M. Night guide you through “Lady in the Water” at his own pace, stop reading now. Warned? Okay.

Cleveland Heep (Paul Giamatti) is an apartment building manager who has been hearing someone splashing around in the pool after hours. One night, he actually manages to see the culprit, but she dives back into the water and doesn’t come up. While searching for the woman, he falls down, rolls into the pool, and blacks out. When he wakes up, he’s lying on his own bed and a strange woman is wearing his shirt and staring at him. Apparently she’s a creature called a “narf” from “The Blue World” and has come here on a mission to meet a writer.

Slowly, Heep learns more about Story the Narf (Bryce Dallas Howard) from a fairy tale told by one of his tenants. Narfs come to the human world to inspire and encourage people. Once they’ve completed their mission, a big eagle carries them back home. Big wolf-like creatures called “scrunts” hunt the narfs to ensure none stay in the human world. Amazingly, this is all part of a complicated back-story you’ll need to understand in order to be able to enjoy this movie.

For some unexplainable reason, Story is attacked by her scrunt without provocation and against all of the mystical rules. As the scrunt’s attacks become more vicious, Heep and the other tenants must find out what has gone wrong while they try desperately to help send Story safely home.

Review by
STEVEN HARRELL

At first, “Lady in the Water” seems as shallow as the kiddie pool. But if you allow yourself to be taken in, you’ll find a world of depth beneath the surface. It’s based on a bedtime story that M. Night made up for his daughters, a fact that proves both a great strength and a serious flaw.

The flaw lies in the fact that unless you take notes from the opening animation sequence that explains the basic points of the fairy tale, you’ll get lost in the film’s complicated mythology. In fact, I’m still a little confused. Scunts, narfs, tartuics, healers, protectors, a guild? It’s hard to really get the whole picture -- and keep up with a whole other plotline -- in the film’s sparse 98 minute runtime.

On the other hand, the sheer creativity of the whole thing is just plain fun (and thought-provoking). If I’d read the M. Night glossary before walking into the theater, I doubt it would have been as much fun to follow all of the complications that followed. The feeling of being in the dark also serves as a way to attach us to Giamatti’s character, who never knows more than we do. In the end, I really enjoyed watching all of the messy parts assemble themselves into a carefully constructed whole. However, I imagine many critics won’t like the glacial pace of the revelations as much as I did.

Something else critics may not like is that one of the apartment tenants is an unlikable movie critic seemingly used by Shyamalan to mock all of the writers who have given him bad reviews over the years. The critic drones on and on, arrogantly refusing to see the good in anything unconventional. Sure it’s a little self-indulgent and pretentious on Shyamalan’s part, but I couldn’t help but cheer a little every time the critic is proven wrong.

One other note. The film’s advertising is very misleading: chilling music, images of a scary creature darting in and out of the shadows, and a creepy child’s voice singing “who’s afraid of the big bad wolf. ” It really gives an audience the wrong idea of what kind of film this is. It’s not a horror movie; it’s hardly even scary. Sure, it includes some jump-in-your-seat moments, but the film is also wildly funny, sweet, and meaningful. Yes, “Lady in the Water” is a little self-indulgent, but it’s still a quality film that is beautifully constructed and pretty entertaining to watch.

The PG-13 rating comes from the intensity of the story and the frightening “scrunt” scenes. But you’ll hear very little bad language, and there’s no sexual content.