Lady in the Water - M Night Shyamalan's Massive Ego Trip

Lady in the Water is what happens when a director's ego is allowed to go completely unchallenged. I was not expecting much going into it, but what I got was worse than I thought it could be. Not only is it a poorly-written mess of a movie, but it feels like M. Night Shyamalan wanted to make a movie about how awesome he is. Throughout the movie I just got the feeling that M Night was positive that this was the greatest movie of all time and I just had to agree with him.

It's bad enough that the titular "lady in the water" is called a "narf" (Apparently Pinky was on the writing team). It's bad enough that none of the characters act in a remotely believable way. It's bad enough that none of the mythology is explained well and makes little sense. However, M. Night wasn't content to stop there, no, M. Night didn't think directing, writing and producing his movie was enough. No, he needed to also play a major role in it. The role of a character whose writing is so inspirational, it causes a young boy to one day become president.

That's right, M. Night Shyamalan inspires Barack Obama to run for president because he, some dumb college kid, writes a book about politics and how everyone else is doing it wrong. Apparently his points are so inspiring, so magical, that in the future, young Barack will read them and decide to go into politics. Also M. Night will die in the future, it is implied that it is because of his book. So yes, M. Night not only inspires the president, but is so edgey someone kills him over it. At least he gives some of the character's credit to the muse.

Yes, the narf is also a muse--maybe, it's not explicitly stated for sure--named Story. She might be a "Madame Narf" which makes her special in some other way that is never explained. This is just the tip of the nonsensical iceberg that is Lady in the Water's mythology. Narfs have a mortal enemy--scrunts--which are wolves made of grass that can be stopped when The Guardian, one of the special people the narf attracts, stares at it, but if anyone else stares at it nothing happens. Also if a scrunt attacks a narf, the narf is poisoned, so special mud that the narf is given (somehow by some mysterious power) is needed to bring back the narf with the aid of another special person called The Healer. See, I wasn't kidding. It is a wolf made out of grass.

Also there are a bunch of other arbitrary special people the narf attracts, including The Guild and the interpreter. Oh also there are rules to how scrunts and narfs can behave. The tarturic make sure the scrunts don't attack when they arbitrarily are not allowed to. Also the Great Eatlon eventually will rescue the narf and take it to... narf heaven?

It makes even less sense in context as the information is poorly revealed through a female, asian college student who translates from what her grandmother says. Using this third-hand information, our protagonist, Cleveland, figures out how to best help his narfy friend. 

At one point in the movie, Cleveland needs help finding these special people, so he talks to a local movie critic. Comically, everyone hates the local movie critic because he's annoying. The movie critic explains who the clichéd candidates would be, but it turns out that he got all the people mixed up because he's just a stupid movie critic.

This causes trouble for the narf, and he soon gets attacked by a scrunt (which, until this moment, hasn't really attacked anyone at all outside of the narf). Again, comically, Mr. Critic talks about how because no one has been seriously injured or killed yet, the movie was light-hearted and he would duck into his room at the last second and be okay. Comically, Mr. Critic gets ripped to shreds by the scrunt. Moments before this scene, one character calls him arrogant for daring to assume to know the intention of another human being. Take that critics! M Night Shyamalan is too smart and cool to fall for your clichés! 

Movie Critic, moments before death.Did I mention that all of the special people the narf attracts instantly believe in all of the fairy tales without question? They don't bat an eye when Cleveland and M. Night Shyamalan tell them about how they have magical powers and have to help this crazy girl sitting in a shower meet up with an eagle. They only even slightly doubt the whole thing for about a minute and that's after they're already working on helping her. It makes absolutely no sense. No  one blindly accepts that magic and otherworldly creatures are real without proof just because some Indian guy and their superintendent tell them so.

On the bright side, the awful writing does make the movie more entertaining rather than boring. Watching the people of the apartment blindly accept the strange theory about magical people is pretty funny and some of the characters and their plans are so ludicrous that it just provides even more amusement. Add in lines like "I do not want to become a Madame Narf" and the movie is actually fairly entertaining most of the time. It's hardly a good movie though and it just feels like M Night Shyamalan is very impressed with what a good job he did on his movie. It's not his worst movie (The Last Airbender has that unfortunate title), but it's an awful, self-aggrandizing mess. Be sure to look for it in I Don't Even some time soon.