Movie: Lady in the Water

Revenge to the Film Critic

Casts: Bryce Dallas Howard, Paul Giamatti, Jeffrey Wright, Bob Balaban, Freddy Rodriguez, Jared Harris, Mary Beth Hurt, M. Night Shyamalan, Bill Irwin, Sarita Choudhury
Directed by M. Night Shyamalan

Once upon a time, there was a myth about the narfs, an ancient fairy-like race of water beings whose attempts at communication with humans have long ago ceased. According to the myth, once in every one of some period of time, a narf will come again to our world in order to awaken the conscience of a chosen one, who supposedly will change the face of human civilization in the future for the better. After her task was completed, a magic eagle will come and swoop her up back to her world. The task was not a simple job to do since she will have to face a gruesome wolf-look-alike creature whose single purpose was to prevent her from completing this task.

That was the myth, and now, the “reality”.

Picture an apartment complex in suburban Philadelphia with lots of eccentric tenants. Cleveland Heep (Giamatti) was the depressed caretaker in the complex who had faced a terrible occurrence and had been hiding from it ever since. As his nature driven him, he stayed to be a helpful person but forever felt at lost, living everyday without any purpose in life. When he met Story (Howard), the narf, he somehow elected himself to help the fragile looking fairy in finding the Chosen One, along with The Healer, The Protector, The Interpreter, and The Guild, who weren’t aware of their true destinies. Story did found the chosen one, but the rest of the myth was turning into a disaster, because the wolf seemed to have decided not to play according to the ancient rules.

Did you “enjoy” watching The Sixth Sense, The Others or The Village and proclaimed yourself as M. Night Shyamalan’s fan? Well, if you do, we have something in common. But before watching this one, I have to warn you. When I bought the ticket to watch Lady in the Water yesterday, I was preparing myself to get spooked. But instead, I find myself smirking and laughing for the jokes Shyamalan had inserted through out the movie. I mean, the silly death of the film critic character in it? Not the mention of his spiteful personality, and the fact that he almost made Giamatti’s role mistook some important symbols in the myth? Really, I smelled a sweet revenge was going on around here! Hahaha. Nevertheless I was entertained, and kind of glad because I didn’t have to fear any lurking black shadow when I got home after that.

I really liked watching Bryce Dallas Howard in this movie; her face was so beautiful and fairy-like. She would easily made us believe that she’s an elegant and fragile creature from another world. I was also surprised to see Shyamalan himself played quite a large sum of the scenes. I was wondering who was this charming Indian guy who played one of the tenants and since I have only saw Shyamalan pictures in glimpses, I didn’t know it was him until this morning. Never realized that he’s quite attractive; I guess now there were more reasons for me to become his fan, huh? ;-p

Oh yeah, there was one thing that bothered me while watching: the microphones that keep showing for about tenth times during the show—too often to make you think that Shyamalan had done this on purpose. But when I read the complaints from fellow moviegoers in rottentomatoes.com forum, I got to know this interesting bit about the theater:

OMGitbeHayley: The boom mics are filmed in most movies because they need to get super close to pick up the sound. The theaters have to set the projectors to cut off the tippy top part of the actual movie to cut out the microphones, but sometimes the projector gets bumped or knocked out of place and top part of the movie gets projected on the screen, making the microphones visible. If that makes sense...

Theinfamouspaw: as was just explained, the mics are usually at the very top of the frame, but if the projector is off-center they become visible. I had this problem at the screening I saw--I noticed before the movie started that the frame was WAY too low, and sure enough there were the mics.

So I guess this means that you shouldn’t be too surprise when you don’t catch those mics in DVD or other Home Entertainment’s media.

image: rottentomatoes.com