twenty-three

I’ll do my best not to spoil to much of the plot in this post. Stacy and I just saw M. Night Shyamalan’s newest film, Lady in the Water. In my opinion, this is his best since the Sixth Sense (I haven’t seen The Village but I haven’t heard too many good things about it.)

Not to say too much about the story, but I have to give you this: everything you see in the trailer is pretty much in the first 15 minutes of the film. Unfortunately, I began to doubt the movie at that point, wondering where it was going to go from there. Luckily, with all of the stuff I already knew out of the way, the story opens up into a challenging look at the purpose of every being. As with his other movies, Shyamalan doesn’t skimp on the spirituality and fills the movie with religious/spiritual symbolism that will take a while to work out as I reflect on the movie.

Starring Paul Giamatti as a somewhat hopeless live-in maintenance guy at an apartment complex, the film revolves around the discovery of a woman from another world, the Blue World, who has come with a message to humanity. Shyamalan has a significant role in the movie as well and I was impressed with his acting ability. Giamatti is good as always, struggling to be a hero under the weight of personal doubt and a lack of confidence in his ability to lead and protect the woman, Story.

I’m glad I saw it. And maybe now I won’t get so annoyed at the Lady in the Water banner ads on every movie website I go to. This film has quite the marketing campaign behind it. Maybe the studio realized that Shyamalan had "done good" on this one. It’s definitely worth seeing, so if anybody wants to go, I’ll see it again with you.

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