From the truly original mind of writer/director Manoj Night Shyamalan, comes the fifth film in his celebrated series of twist-cinema, Lady in the Water. For this film, Shyamalan creates an ancient myth and brings it to life in the most unlikely of places--a low-rent apartment complex.
Paul Giamatti, the truest everyman actor I think I've ever seen, plays Cleveland Heep--a sad sack of a man who superintends The Cove apartments. After observing some very strange clues about the tenant pool, he discovers a sea creature (Bryce Dallas Howard) who is supposedly part of eastern lore. Giamatti is drawn to her--and desires to protect her, to understand her mission, and t
o get her safely home.
Set around this mythos is a hundred or more people who are just like any one you might run into at Wal-Mart. The entire picture is told through Giamatti's eyes, and even without the fantastic sea-nymph scenario, there are great riches mined by Shyamalan in these authentic characters.
Howard makes us believe she is someone from another world, Shyamalan--in a very significant role--is wonderfully cast, and Bob Balaban is completely amusing as the new tenant. And Sarita Choudhury, as a vivacious and opinionated resident, is spot-on and quite funny.
Lady in the Water will make you wonder, jump with fright, shout at the screen (if you do that kind of thing), and care deeply about what happens to these players. For this, Shyamalan scores. I have just three issues: the convenience of the Asian mother character, the lack of skeptics among the tenants, and the eagle.
Lady in the Water is a wonderful film from beginning to end--not as mind-bending as The Sixth Sense, or as fun as Unbreakable--it compares best to the movie Signs, with its earnest, yet broken protaganist, set on understanding creatures from another world, and the window they open into his soul. Lady in the Water: B+
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Post Script: Shyamalan has actually written and directed 7 films: Praying with Anger (1992), Wide Awake (1998), The Sixth Sense (1999), 
Unbreakable (2000), Signs (2002), The Village (2004), and Lady in the Water (2006). He also wrote the screenplay for the movie Stuart Little, which features Dr. Gregory House--Hugh Laurie... that just trips me out.
I have seen all 5 of the most recent M. Night films--my favorite is Unbreakable, with The Sixth Sense a close second. I am a big fan of both Lady in the Water and The Village, and I thought Signs was good, but it would have to be my least favorite.
Entertainment Weekly ran a story a few weeks ago about the difficulty Shyamalan had in making this movie. Disney--which had backed his previous four smashes--refused to green-light this project after reading the script. They were very uncomfortable with the story, and with M. Night's desire to play such a large role. Shyamalan was both floored and conflicted by this reaction, but came to the conclusion that he did not want to work with this group anymore as he had lost faith in them. He kept his story as originally written, and as he had hoped, landed Giamatti for the lead. It turned out to be a great movie--I hope the box-office returns prove to be a great vindicator.
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