Sunday, July 23, 2006
M. Night takes a bath
Having been a fan of most of M.Night Shyamalan's previous efforts, (except for the last half or so of "Signs") my wife and I were excited to catch his latest in the local plex, "The Lady in the Water". Don't be fooled by the quick edits in the trailer, this one's scariest moments come when the sprinklers in the lawn start up. It's got lots of M.Night's common theme of ordinary people, who can in fact do extraordinary things, even though they would never believe themselves capable of them, but the over the top goofiness of the myth presented (when the lady, Story, announced herself to be a "Narf".. my wife and I giggled the remainder of the film about when she was going to "Narfle the Garthok") lessened the impact of any of the action taking place within. Being someone who's indeed very afraid of dogs, especially snarling, growling, teeth baring dogs, I still found the one made out of grass in this movie too cartoonish to arouse the fright it did in the major characters.) His earlier films, while still leaning on the extraordinary heroes hiding in ordinary bodies theme, were at least grounded in more "believeable" situations, and therefore, for me, carried more weight. Although I must admit it is a powerful scene when Paul Giamatti's character, (named "Cleveland Heep" in what must be another one of those inside Cle jokes that none of us born Clevelanders seem to be in on), realizes the only way he can help Story is to confront his own wrenching sadness over the death of his family. Critics seem to hate this movie for some reason, might have something to do with the know it all film critic that ends up being "Scrunt" food in what turns out to be the biggest laugh of the film.
