Lady in the Water (2006)

Director:

M. Night Shyamalan

Writer (WGA):

M. Night Shyamalan (written by)

Release Date:

21 July 2006 (USA)

Genre:

Mystery | Thriller

Tagline:

Time is running out for a happy ending.

Plot:

Apartment building superintendent Cleveland Heep rescues what he thinks is a young woman from the pool he maintains. When he discovers that she is actually a character from a bedtime story who is trying to make the journey back to her home, he works with his tenants to protect his new friend from the creatures that are determined to keep her in our world.

Plot Keywords:

Apartment | Bedtime Story | Stuttering | Swimming Pool | Eagle

Awards:

2 wins & 3 nominations

Cast

Paul Giamatti	...	Cleveland Heep
Bryce Dallas Howard	...	Story
Jeffrey Wright	...	Mr. Dury
Bob Balaban	...	Harry Farber
Sarita Choudhury	...	Anna Ran
Cindy Cheung	...	Young-Soon Choi
M. Night Shyamalan	...	Vick Ran
Freddy Rodríguez	...	Reggie
Bill Irwin	...	Mr. Leeds
Mary Beth Hurt	...	Mrs. Bell
Noah Gray-Cabey	...	Joey Dury
Joseph D. Reitman	...	Long Haired Smoker
Jared Harris	...	Goatee Smoker
Grant Monohon	...	Emaciated Smoker
John Boyd	...	One-Eyebrow Smoker

MPAA:

Rated PG-13 for some frightening sequences.

Runtime:

110 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Colour:

Colour

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

SDDS | Dolby Digital EX | DTS-ES

Certification:

Singapore:PG | Malaysia:U | Ireland:12A | UK:PG | Canada:PG (British Columbia) | USA:PG-13 (certificate #42716) | India:U | Australia:PG | Switzerland:12 (canton of Geneva) | Switzerland:12 (canton of Vaud) | Hong Kong:IIA | Finland:K-11 | Argentina:16 | Germany:12 | Brazil:10 | Netherlands:12 | Hungary:14 | Philippines:PG-13 (MTRCB) | Switzerland:12 (canton of Zurich) | Sweden:11 | Italy:T | South Korea:All | Canada:G (Québec) | New Zealand:PG

Filming Locations:

Levittown, Pennsylvania, USA

Company:

Warner Bros. Pictures

Trivia:

Some of this film was shot in Levittown, Pennsylvania at a Jacobson logistics warehouse site. (Shyamalan has committed to using films sites in PA.) The set, built on the warehouse site, includes an apartment complex and a half city block of row houses. Occasional footage was shot inside the overflow area of the warehouse. Most of the filming was completed after Jacobson work hours.

Goofs:

Continuity: While in Young Soon's apartment, the amount of milk on Cleveland's beard clearly changes between shots.

Quotes:

[first lines]
Cleveland Heep: Once, man and those in the water were linked. They inspired us. They spoke of the future. Man listened and it became real. But man does not listen very well. Man's need to own everything led him deeper into land. The magic world of the ones that lived in the ocean...

Movie Connections:

Featured in "HBO First Look: Lady in the Water (#13.10)" (2006)

Soundtrack:

Spoon

One bizarre evening

I can't rate this film.

When I go to see a Shyamalan film, I expect to be entertained and stimulated, but I never know exactly how this will be accomplished. Shyamalan's films use ambiguity aesthetically and he draws his audience through the seduction of interpretive participation. Of all of his films, perhaps Lady in the Water does this most profoundly. Although I understood the entire film - the plot, the themes, the method - I walked away asking "what the hell did I just see?" It's easy enough to categorize the film. Lady in the Water is an absurdist comedy. But it makes you ask yourself why you are laughing. With Shyamalan's talent as it is, it is impossible for me to believe that any aspect of the humor of this film was unintentional. Yet the other side of LITW is dark fantasy, in the tradition of Michael Cohn's Snow White.

With a cast David Lynch would have been happy with, Shyamalan tells a fable from East Asia as it is experienced by a superintendent (Giamatti) at an apartment complex full of mundanely odd characters. A strange and beautiful young woman (Howard) has emerged from the complex's pool, apparently seeking contact with the surface world so she can find folkloric archetypes who can protect her from the evil creatures that hunt her and return her to her world beneath the waves.

Giamatti, Howard, and Shyamalan himself are all very entertaining. Howard - a very unusual looking and uniquely pretty woman - is shot so beautifully that it is very difficult to take your eyes off of her. M. Night's performance is so bizarre, it is hard to tell whether or not he is acting.

LITW is definitely the strangest film I have seen from Shyamalan. I have been up and down with him since the beginning of his career, enjoying his early films, very much disliking Signs, and being impressed with the Village. I believe that with the Village and LITW, M. Night is establishing a new and unique direction for himself. And if he keeps going this way, I will gladly follow.