Lady In The Water

[Rogue]

I used to be huge fan of Shymalan, Unbreakable is one of my favorite movies, but after The Village I was kind of disappointed and thought he may be losing his touch I cut him some slack and went to see Lady in the Water and was again disappointed. I thought it had a very weak story line, and I have a very good imagination and can appreciate fantasy but that movie did not sell it at all, the character developement was weak and the story line was icnredibly unfocused. For me the only redeeming quality was the fact that I shared the name of Dallas Bryce Howard's character in the movie ( I doubt that will hold much redemption for anyone else) but other then that the movie was a huge disappointment for me.

Did anyone else see it? What did you think of the plot and what was the point, Shymalan claims to have a point and deeper meaning to the movie, but I guess I just didn't pick up on it.

[Jay P]

....

Did anyone else see it? What did you think of the plot and what was the point, Shymalan claims to have a point and deeper meaning to the movie, but I guess I just didn't pick up on it.

Yes I saw it, and I also could not figure out what the point of the whole movie was. I left the theater with the question "what was that all about?" in my mind. I'm already starting to forget about it after only a week.

I didn't understand the significance of most of the characters, other than they turned out to have some inexplicable supernatural powers. And the significance of the characters was not believable to me. For instance, the young man writing the book. To me, he came off as somthing of a disorganized flake, but then he suddenly finds his inspiration and is supposedly going to write something of deep significance. But I hadn't been shown anything about him that would lead me to believe he could do this. In other words, I'm told that a certain character is important, but am not shown why he does.

For the most part, the people depicted were either just plain weird (i.e., spending your life strengthening the right side of your body, for no apparent reason; or being deathly afraid of cockroaches or whatever that bug was) or at minimum were people that, in real life, I wouldn't have cared to meet. The doctor was presented in a way that I can only empathize with him (given what happened to him in the past), but I didn't think that was enough to drive the plot.

[Lemuel]

I took Shyamalan's word - "It's just a bedtime story, no more" - and approached the film that way, not looking for deeper meaning.

I thought Giamatti's character was definitely a hero - he rose to the challenge, and despite the odd reaction from the other tenants, convinced them that his goal was real and true. He used his mind and creativity to put the puzzle pieces together, and discover what and who would help him help Story.

Not a great literary achievement ... just a well-told, enjoyable fairy tale that doesn't take advantage of the viewer.

(I can't stand suspending disbelief then having some message rammed down my throat. A good story is told so that the message is implicit in the motivations of the characters, the plot elements, the central struggle, and other media-appropriate mechanisms - let the viewer/reader draw their own conclusions.)

[Sherry]

I took Shyamalan's word - "It's just a bedtime story, no more" - and approached the film that way, not looking for deeper meaning.

I thought Giamatti's character was definitely a hero - he rose to the challenge, and despite the odd reaction from the other tenants, convinced them that his goal was real and true. He used his mind and creativity to put the puzzle pieces together, and discover what and who would help him help Story.

Not a great literary achievement ... just a well-told, enjoyable fairy tale that doesn't take advantage of the viewer.

(I can't stand suspending disbelief then having some message rammed down my throat. A good story is told so that the message is implicit in the motivations of the characters, the plot elements, the central struggle, and other media-appropriate mechanisms - let the viewer/reader draw their own conclusions.)

That's how I looked at it too, just as a bed time story. I really enjoyed it, as did my whole family. My kids (ages 5 through 16) often ask if they can watch it. I think they have seen it at least 6 or 7 times in the past 2 months alone, hahah.