Lady in the Water (DVD)

There are two originally-conceived, high-profile dark fairy tale movies out this year. One is the brilliant, beautiful and bold Pan's Labyrinth from Guillermo del Toro, and the other is this muddled, masturbatory mess from M. Night Shyamalan… hm, guess which one I liked better?

I actually saw Lady in the Water before it was released in theaters, but since I was doing interviews in connection with the film at the time, I decided to show a little restraint and some courtesy, and wait until the DVD release to voice my opinion of the film. Upon watching the movie again, my estimation has not, I regret to say, changed. (Please note, this review contains a couple of spoilers.)

The story follows Story (a mostly-mute, always-dripping Bryce Dallas Howard), a mythical sea-nymph of sorts called a narf (rhymes, appropriately enough, with…) who gets stuck in the swimming pool of a Philadelphia apartment complex called The Cove. In order to return to her magical world, she enlists the help of the glum resident handyman, Cleveland Heep (a muttering, puttering Paul Giamatti — who is actually quite good in his thankless role).

Of course, she can't tell him outright how to help her, so throughout the film Story drops mystifying hints which lead to Heep's enlistment of the other tenants to form a "guild" of guessers and narf-protectors. In the meantime, the nearly-naked narf's mortal enemies, big CGI wolflike creatures called skrunks, stalk the perimeter of the complex, waiting to snap the cowering Story up in their pixilated jaws.

An incongruous cabal of misfits and stereotypes (ethnic, sexual, and otherwise) come together to try and puzzle out Story's incomprehensible clues which include covert crosswords, the words on cereal boxes, cookbook recipes, butterflies and eagles, guilds and guardians, automatic sprinklers, grass monsters, and a mean movie reviewer (played excellently by Bob Balaban, making the critic the flick's sole saving grace).

And speaking of saving graces, in the end it's Shyamalan himself, self-cast as a Christ-like figure (think: Haley Joel Osment in Pay It Forward, only not as cuddly), who's the savior of mankind — and of course, narfkind.

A mishmash of myth, religion, horror, humor, and quest fantasy, Lady in Water, if taken with a grain of salt(water), might not be so bad for a one-time viewing. But unless you are a hardcore Shyamalan fan who already thinks the man walks on water, rent rather than buy.

• "Lady in the Water: A Bedtime Story" featurette
• "Reflections of Lady in the Water" 6-part documentary
• Auditions
• Deleted Scenes
• Gag Reel
• Trailer

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Reviewed by Staci Layne Wilson