The name M. Night Shyamalan is one many of us may be somewhat familiar with. Though he hasn’t reached the same level of fame as Stephen Spielberg, his name nevertheless carries some weight in the film industry—both good and bad. If you’re older, you’ll know him as the creator of The Sixth Sense, the film which generated everyone’s favourite quote: “I see dead people.” If you’re younger, you’ll have the misfortune of associating him with the wreckage of a film that was the live action Avatar: The Last Airbender.
Shyamalan’s films are hit and miss affairs for both audiences and critics. Critics, especially, struggle with his work. Like many of his movies, Shyamalan’s Lady in the Water received poor reviews. Despite this, it was one of my favourite films growing up. It features a fairy tale like story which takes place within an ordinary apartment complex; several ordinary people discover they have a greater purpose, with supernatural powers, and the film features a creepy villain—not one which talks, but an animal which breaks the rules of the ancient world, because his prey is more special than even she knows. It’s wild, magical, and filled with themes on storytelling and being unafraid to change the world with your words.
That’s right. Lady in the Water is about the power of writing.
As a kid, I loved it for it’s fantasy elements and quirky characters. I still love it for those reasons, but in watching it again I’ve discovered another layer. As a writer myself, the story is now even more relevant to me.
It’s understandable why not everyone liked it. For one, it committed what some screenwriters consider a faux pas: it opens with a voice over, explaining the world and the conflict. Story—the character whom the protagonist must aid—also has abilities which seem to work only when it won’t make things easier for the plot. She needs to find several people with abilities. She doesn’t know who they are, but once she meets them she is able to tell their futures. She is even able to see their affect on others, and how the world itself will change. With this in mind, one might ask why, if she can see the future, she can’t see who the right people are, or otherwise know how her own story will turn out (especially if the lives of those she’s predicting for are tied with her own).
The flaws aside, the film has something deeper to say which is likely missed by the average moviegoer. In addition to the fantasy, the film comments on writing, the power of ideas for change, the subversion of tropes, and even on how narrow minded critics can be when it comes to storytelling.
Most viewers would have signed up for a mystical fantasy film about a supernatural being who escapes a monster. They signed up for a standard supernatural thriller, and instead received a movie laden with commentary on the written word (and, again, how lousy critics are). People were looking for Harry Potter, and they got morals (on the power of words to change the future, on subversion of tropes…you get the picture).
You opened this article to read about an underrated fantasy film, and you’re getting an essay on writing. The film isn’t for everyone, though it does have the elements of magic, monsters, and lore any fantasy buff could appreciate. Little kid me loved it; you just have to be willing to engage with the wider commentary surrounding the magical set pieces.
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1) Storytelling
Lady in the Water is about the power of a good story, and there are a couple of on the nose examples within the film. First, the woman the protagonist must help, a sea nymph, or “narf,” is literally named “Story.” Second, Story, as a Narf in what is known as “the Blue World,” is literally apart of something called “The Bedtime Story.” Cleveland is the protagonist, and it’s through questioning a neighbour that he learns this story. Though it’s told like a fairy tale, the woman who shares it with him treats it likes it’s real. She heard it from her grandmother, and literally believed in it.
Stories are powerful, and even without being thrust into the story herself the woman who shares it with Cleveland was willing to believe it was true—she didn’t need proof, because stories have power.
For casual fantasy buffs, the lore is kept vague. The viewer is only told what they need to know, when it’s relevant. Some may have wished for more detail, but to do so would have removed the mystery surrounding the Bedtime Story, and thus lessened it’s power. The simplicity of the tale, and it’s ability to keep the reader hooked with the most vital details, is part of it’s beauty. The questions it raises only serve to make us more curious.
Cleveland eventually shares the story with other residents in the apartment complex, and they don’t question it. They are willing to believe that Story is a supernatural entity of the sea, and that they are capable of helping her. For critics and audience members, this willingness might seem too easy; however, it’s the power of a good story, or Story herself, which moves them to help.
2) The Cookbook
Narfs are sent to the human world to find people who are known as “vessels.” Vessels are meant to change the world, but need to meet a narf in order for something to be awakened within them. Humans and narfs once worked together, but humans were drawn away from their sea nymph guides by the lure of war and land ownership. In their greediness, they were cut off from the Blue World. Despite this, the narfs haven’t given up on humanity, and so they continue their attempts to reach a people who “have forgotten how to listen.” Of course, there’s no stronger way to communicate than through the written word.
When Story arrives at the apartment complex, Cleveland, through learning more of the Bedtime Story, deduces that Story needs to find somebody. When he asks her who she’s looking for, she can only tell him she’s looking for a writer. She doesn’t know anything else. She doesn’t know his name, what he looks like, or even if he’s a man or a woman.
After interviewing residents around the apartment, Cleveland visits a couple neighbours—a brother and a sister—to fix a broken light in the brother’s office. He casually asks how the man’s writing is going, only to realize the writer he’s been looking for was one he knew all along.
When Cleveland enters the space to fix the light, he sees the manuscript. He doesn’t read it, but sees the title: The Cookbook. Naturally, he assumes it’s a literal cookbook and begins to feel silly. It’s not until after he speaks with the young man that he realizes the book isn’t about food at all, but about culture and politics.
The young man is brought to meet Story, and immediately feels something. Afterwards, writing becomes easy for him; Story has fulfilled her mission. The “writer” in the story is literally played by a real writer—Shyamalan himself, whose character offers relevant commentary nobody wants to hear. It’s strangely meta, but it works.
Once Story has met someone, she can tell their future. The writer learns that his book will bring about great change. A boy will grow up reading his words, and will be moved to become a notable leader because of reading his book. However, somebody unhappy with the writer’s opinions will also kill him. As the writer puts it, there are “things in the cookbook people won’t like to hear.” This plot line underscores the story’s theme: the written word has the power to change the world. Writing, for better or for worse, is a powerful tool. Not everyone will agree with what you have to say, but you shouldn’t let that stop you. If you write what you believe in, your words, just words, could make a difference.
3) The Subversion of Tropes
The film pokes fun at the standard formula movies use. It shows how shallow narrative structures can be, commenting on character tropes and how writer’s indicate the importance of characters by placing them at the right times in a movie. Shyamalan is not a paint by the numbers writer. He is not an adherent to Save the Cat (in fact, Blake Snyder, Save the Cat’s author, even criticized another of Shyamalan’s films, Signs, for not following his “rules” of what makes a good film).
This subversion of tropes is first shown through a critic. Story almost dies, because Cleveland seeks the critic’s help in analyzing the Bedtime Story. The critic treats it like a stereotypical story, determining who each person is, and what their role is, based on tricks he’s observed in film. Cleveland has to find an interpreter and a group known as “the guild.” The critic tells Cleveland, in searching for the guild, to look for a group who regurgitates nonsense and sits around, and to find the interpreter by finding someone who sees messages in the mundane. He states that these characters will appear early in the story…and they do. Shyamalan introduces them to us, and to anyone as versed in storytelling as the critic, the assumption would be that these characters would be important.
However, the people the critic assumes are said characters, of course, aren’t. Though Shyamalan introduces them, all of these characters actually turn out to be useless to the plot. Aside from being interesting characters, they don’t aid the protagonist. They break standard convention by being useless (though critics probably didn’t like there being so many “useless” characters, their being useless was completely the point, because they weren’t apart of the story).
As it turns out, Cleveland is one of the chosen few. Yet he’s not who everyone, including Story and the audience, would assume. The trick with the Bedtime Story is that nobody knows his or her own role in it. After the interpreter and the guild, other characters in the Bedtime Story include the healer and the guardian. Even Story, as the central component of the Bedtime Story, makes an incorrect assumption about Cleveland, based on his behaviour. She assumes Cleveland is the guardian.
With the stories most of us are accustomed to, Cleveland as the guardian makes sense. If you think of most of the popular stories—Star Wars, Harry Potter, or Thor, to name a few—all protagonists have something in common. They are warriors. In a typical fantasy film, the hero of the story is supposed to be just that—a hero, swooping in to save the damsel and protect her. Story is the damsel, the woman in distress, and Cleveland is the one protecting her from the beast. At least that’s what everyone thinks.
As it turns out, protagonist or not, Cleveland isn’t the fighter. He’s the healer. Another character fights off the monster which pursues Story, while Cleveland saves Story’s life in his own way, healing the wounds the monster has inflicted upon her. It was never his role to protect her, even if he is the main character.
A number of red herrings are introduced in each of the roles, and an elderly woman, with a kind face and wispy white hair, is assumed to be the healer. She does, after all, fit the stereotype. Even the Bedtime Story asserts that the healer is usually a woman, but never says that they have to be. In most stories, the woman is the healer and the male protagonist is the warrior. Lady in the Water subverts this trope by making not only a man, but the main character, act in the role of a support character.
4) The Critic
Ah, the critic. This film is as much a dig on critics as it is a commentary on them. The critic of the film is arrogant; he’s rude; he’s high up in his industry; and he seems to dislike most of the content he engages with. He can predict everything which is going to happen in a film, and he hates cliches. When he asks Cleveland, in an irritated tone, why people are always kissing in the rain, Cleveland is able to see something deeper. He says it could be a metaphor for renewal. The critic, though, flat out dismisses Cleveland’s suggestion. “No, it’s not,” he says, sounding more irritated than ever. As far as he’s concerned, he’s right, Cleveland is wrong, the rain in films is stupid, and that’s the end of it. He’s not willing to see the bigger picture.
The films Shyamalan writes are often misunderstood by critics, if not outright hated by them. The critic in Lady in the Water would certainly have misunderstood it, if he had watched it. Ironically, Lady in the Water, like other films made by Shyamalan, did receive low scores. Critics ranked it even lower than audience members.
It’s safe to say the character of the critic was a cathartic one for Shyamalan. The critic even analyzes his own life in the context of the movie. When the film’s monster, the scrunt, sneaks into the building, the critic encounters it. He states that this is the part where the “unlikable side character” is killed off, adding that in a family film said character will live, “having learned a valuable lesson.” He says he will escape, and that the monster will miss him by inches. It’s a fourth wall moment which makes fun of movies’ tendencies to have people narrowly escape death—except, this is a Shyamalan film.
Like all of the other predictions the critic has made, it’s wrong. The critic doesn’t escape: he is torn apart by the monster. For a writer who regularly deals with narrow minded critics, this moment is poetic justice at it’s finest.
In Conclusion
For all it’s imperfections (or at least what Hollywood would call imperfections) Lady in the Water is a great film. Beyond it’s unearthly soundtrack, it’s strong cast, and it’s fantasy elements, it has a deeper commentary to share on the power of the written word, and storytelling in general.
Whether it be subverting tropes, making fun of assumptions, featuring a writer played by a writer, or killing off misguided critics, Lady in the Water teaches the viewer that writing can change the world, and that a good story is worth believing in. To quote from this film: “I want to believe. I want to be like a child again.” This is exactly the kind of mindset we should have when engaging with a story. It’s not our job to analyze, but to believe.
What underrated films spoke to you, and why? Do you tend to agree with critics, or disagree with them? Let me know.