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Movie - Lady in the Water


Scrivener
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I heard the stories and went in with an open mind, thinking "Well, I really liked The Village - maybe the critics are just over-reacting." As is the case whenever I get a fit of film optimism, I was wrong. So very, very wrong.

Lady in the Water is pretentious, egotistical, demeaning, and uninteresting. Essentially, you are paying to watch Shyamalan mentally masturbate onto the audience - and it's positively infuriating. The story thinks it's more intelligent than it's audience, and once you hit the 30 minute mark, the attacks don't stop until it's over.

It's really a shame, because there are dozens of great ideas that might have worked as the foundation for a different movie entirely - but instead they've been slapped together haphazardly into a movie whose only moral is a heavy handed "How dare you criticise the story! You're just too dumb to understand it." Now I think Shyamalan is a great director - I love the atmosphere he injects into all of his films. BUT I hope that, after this steaming pile of cinematic ejaculation, he is never allowed to direct one of his own scripts again so long as he lives.

Really, unless you're 5 years old you are not going to miss this stuff - it's not even in the subtext. Most of the dialogue in the film is spent discussing the nature of a story, and how the characters fit in, and what it all means. It's not subtle by any stretch of the imagination. Oh yeah, and "durrr" the jaded film critic was wrong all along! Oh, how I didn't see that coming.

Wait for the DVD, so you'll only be out $5 for the whole family when you decide the movie is crap. Go see Monster House instead - it's a much smarter, more entertaining "bedtime story."

4/10

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The problem with Shyamalan is that he's almost TOO good at plot-twists. The reason that's a problem is that you need a balance between the audience not seeing it coming a mile away and it making enough sense that the audience thinks, "how did I not see that coming?".

The reason I point that out is:

quote:


Lady in the Water is pretentious, egotistical, demeaning, and uninteresting. Essentially, you are paying to watch Shyamalan mentally masturbate onto the audience - and it's positively infuriating. The story thinks it's more intelligent than it's audience, and once you hit the 30 minute mark, the attacks don't stop until it's over.

What do you mean by this?

I haven't seen the movie yet, but you indicated that you liked The Village. I thought The Village was crap.

Just want to know where you're coming from.

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I liked The Village because I wasn't expected a horror movie. Really, none of Shyamalan's movies have been remotely scary. Also, The Village was a social experiment - one that failed. It had a very deep, complex, and multifaceted moral... you can't escape violence - you can't change human nature. There are good people and bad people and everyone lies, the good and the bad.

On the other hand, Lady in the Water was a lecture of a movie... like listening to an english professor explain why Moby Dick is the greatest novel ever written and anyone who dissagrees is an imbecile. You really have to turn your brain off to enjoy the movie as a simple fairy tale - and if it weren't so bloody preachy it might have succeeded at that.

For example, there is a subplot involving a writer and his destiny. That little story-within-story would have been great as the foundation for it's very own movie. It makes you think about the implications of your role in life - that the inspirer is no less important than the inspired. Unfortunately, it's just one of those interesting subplots that gets lost in the films ham-handed criticism of criticism.

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Madman?

According to everything I've read thus far in the Hollywood entertainment magazines, this movie has kicked him over the edge and out of the it list. Unless he pulls the next one out of his a$$ and not insult our intelligence, he's done and gone.

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I have to revive this thread because I've finally seen this flick. I have to say, I thought this film was fantastic.

This is a rare gem of a film that, if you attempt to look at the obvious, you'll be disappointed. For instance, as Scriv pointed out, the plot DOES explain EVERYTHING to you as it plods along, through a fairly inventive means of narration. BUT, as you wade a bit deeper into the story, you find that the "Fairy Tale" isn't really the plot after all - in fact, the film doesn't work unles you're aware of the story quite early.

I found the film to be a very touching caricature of people attempting to find their place in the world, and in them making mistakes along the way. The only things that would have made it better flick are a quicker start and a better sense of relationships between each character.

Therefore:

7/10

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  • 3 weeks later...

I'm going to give it better marks as well. Being about "story" is not an instant turn-off for me. I DO think that he should have cast someone else instead of himself in that role, but I thought that the reason I watched it was for the reasons Aramike suggested as well as the fact that the scenes between the characters were lots of fun.

7/10

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  • 5 months later...

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