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Lady In The Water (2006) Certificate 12

Lady In The Water
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Rated 3.0 stars
Average rating
(56%)
 
Starring: Bryce Dallas Howard | Paul Giamatti | Jeffrey Wright | Bob Balaban | Freddy Rodríguez | Mary Beth Hurt | Jared Harris
Director: M. Night Shyamalan
Studio: WARNER HOME VIDEO
Run time: 110 mins
Genres: Audio Descriptive | Sci-Fi/Fantasy | Thriller
Languages: English, English Audio Description
Released: January 15, 2007

Kindly caretaker Cleveland Heep (Paul Giamatti, SIDEWAYS) discovers an elfin creature named Story (Bryce Dallas Howard, THE VILLAGE) living in the swimming pool of the apartment complex where he works. It soon becomes apparent to Cleveland that Story is not of this world, and that her mission to deliver a message to mankind is fraught with danger. The stuttering caretaker tries valiantly to protect her so that she may have safe passage back to the Blue World from whence she came. Suspension of disbelief is mandatory in this beautifully realised modern day fable, directed by master of suspense M. Night Shyamalan, who puts his own unique spin on the conventions of the traditional fairy tale.

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Sight and Sound

One of Shyamalan's admirable traits is that he never just homages earlier work, but always thoroughly overhauls his sources. There are traces in LADY IN THE WATER of TWILIGHT ZONE writer Rod Serling's tales...

Highest rated reviews

81 out of 93 people found the following review helpful:

Rated 0 stars
WASTE OF TIME

Lyndsey Wem from Birmingham, 1st April, 2007

No plot, no decent actors, no nothing, what a waste of a sunday afternoon. I wish we had thrown this dvd in the water....

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49 out of 61 people found the following review helpful:

Rated 5 stars
Surprised

rtdpj from Essex, 6th September, 2006

This film was smashed by critics, as was the director, Night.
Which I think is a shame because I think this film is better than better! It shows its characters with a Roald Dahl like honesty that took my breath away, from the sky bearded caretaker to the man who exercises only one part of his body.

Once again the show is stolen by the actress in this film who acted in not only this but Night's 'the village.' she is spooky, beautiful and totally believable. So I suggest that EVERYONE gives this film a chance, and just maybe you'll be surprised.

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41 out of 50 people found the following review helpful:

Rated 0 stars
Awful!

A Customer from Scotland, 16th March, 2007

I watched this movie last night--I had been eagerly awaiting its arrival, because I'd wanted to see it in the cinema, but hadn't managed to do so. I liked M. Night's The Village--even though others I knew didn't like it at all. I went into this movie open-minded--and it was terrible--just terrible! The plot is totally ridiculous--let me add ludicrous to that as well. The actors turn in sparkling non-performances. I saw Giamatti in Sideways and thought he was good--but here? Hang your head in shame, Paul! Bryce Howard's performance consists of staring blankly at the camera. Even the names of the other-worldly characters--narfs and scunts--are absurd. Bryce Howard is the Queen Narf in case you were aching to know. The idea that the supposedly normal people the actors portray would go along with the maniacal ideas put forth by Giamatti's character in this destroys even the tiniest hint of plausability. Two other people who watched this with me thought that it was possibly one of the 10 worst movies they have ever seen--and believe me, they have seen A LOT of them!! This movie fails on every level--you'll bitterly wish that you had the two wasted hours of your life watching this back!

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26 out of 41 people found the following review helpful:

Rated 4 stars
Unusual, but really nice

PaulaWestwood from , 16th October, 2007

I really enjoyed this movie, it is more or less a fairy tale for adults and has a really weirdly floaty feel about it, but that just added to its charm. A really well played 'different' movie that I warmed to right from the first scene. I cannot really see why it was panned by so many, there doesn't seem to be much wrong with this at all, I would recommend it as a really nice film to sit and watch, I'm glad I bothered renting it anyway.

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Most recent reviews

Rated 2 stars
A fairy tale which loses its way...

BigMeUp from , 8th March, 2010

A fairy tale which loses - and never again finds - its way. The premise has potential: a water-sprite with an important mission to accomplish visits our world, but is being chased down by a savage, evil monster. Said mission is compromised when she is inadvertently discovered by a human. Then, it all goes horribly wrong. Not a single plot-line is followed to any logical conclusion, characters bounce in and out of focus randomly, storyline is sacrificed for arcane allusions (homages, in the idiom of the film industry) to earlier fables. As has been mentioned by other reviewers, the acting is atrocious and the dialogue is weak. Director M. Night Shyamalan might be accused of trying too hard here, only I don't see that he's tried at all...

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Rated 0 stars
Boring, useless, waste of time!

Alice2010 from , 1st March, 2010

What a waste of time! What a boring movie! I wander how anybody could ever write a positive review. The plot is so boring that if you have problems getting sleep at night you can use this as 'sleep tablet'.
The nymph looks and acts as if she was brain-damaged, the guy who found / rescued her is pathetic and the acting in general is poor.

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Rated 2 stars
Light Weight

A Customer from York, 19th January, 2010

Very light weight, liked some of the acting, but too superficial for me, too daft.

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Rated 1 stars
More like rubbish in a pool

nchawker from , 24th December, 2009

unbelievable twaddle

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