message in the movies By Rev. Bruce Batchelor Glader

                
Lady in The Water   Rated PG-13
Directed by M. Night Shyamalan.  Starring Paul Giamatti, Bryce Dallas Howard


 

Photos © Copyright Warner Brothers Pictures

Writer-director-actor Shyamalan based “Lady in the Water” on a bedtime story that he told his children over and over again, embellishing it every time.  It’s important that viewers of “Lady in the Water” remember the origin of this tale, because it’s vital to how much (or how little) you enjoy this film.  Cleveland Heep (Giamatti) is custodian for an apartment building in suburban Philadelphia, full of a variety of interesting and colorful tenants.  The complex also has a swimming pool with a filter that is getting clogged up all too quickly.  One night Cleveland discovers a young woman swimming in the pool, who is actually a person from another world who needs to return home again.  This basic premise is an old one (think “E.T.”) and the movie is full of clichés and stereotypes.  But Shyamalan is also aware of this, and the screenplay pokes fun at the absurdities of its own story.  All of the imaginary names are pretty lame, and the rules of the plot are changed about every ten minutes.  But there is life and goodness to this film that affirms the human condition as well as the healing power of community.  Don’t let the scary ads creep you out; this is a very playful movie with a lot of humor and a refreshing sense of innocence (the PG-13 rating is much too severe).  It reminded me somewhat of 1987’s “The Princess Bride”, another bedtime story, and the film might have made more sense with an off-screen narrator.  But, as it is, it’s still pretty good, and the most original film of the summer.  It’s also not afraid of speaking of eternal life as reality, which is perhaps the most comforting bedtime story of all.

 

Pitchfork Rating: Four halos.. (An imaginative and original fable with some good things to say about community.)    One pitchfork.  (Mild scares, some recreational drug use (implied), off-screen violence, and innocent implied nudity.)

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