Plot Outline: Apartment building superintendent Cleveland Heep
(Giamatti) rescues what he thinks is a young woman from the pool he
maintains. When he discovers that she is actually a character from a
bedtime story who is trying to make the journey back to her home, he
works with his tenants to protect his new friend from the creatures
that are determined to keep her in our world.
That plot
outline is incorrect. I just saw this movie today and the creatures
that are said to keep her in our world, is wrong. They are out to
fucking rip her up.
It kind of reminds me of a Grimm’s Fairy
Tale. It is enchanting (bewitching even), the characters all play their
roles well and they pull off a powerful story.
All the
characters are interesting: There’s a guy who body builds only one side
of his body as a scientific experiment. There’s the movie critic, the
man obsessed with watching the war, the writer who is writing a book
that will force change in the world, the old Chinese lady who knows the
myth, and let’s not forget the Lady in the Water.
This movie
gently adds the tension and knots the fear in an even dose until we
reach the climax. There’s a few scares, red herrings (of course), and a
storyline that is spellbinding.
It is a modern fairyirey tale and
not the usual fluff Hollywood brings us. The writer, M. Night Shyamalan
has taken into a very plausibleable world and without a heap of special
effects he has drawn us into his imagination and made us feel for the
characters by showing them to us in unusual ways. Strangely enough he
plays the writer in the movie.
I guess I should tell you the real outline for this movie:
Millions
of years ago, man and the people from the Blue World were friends. They
helped man. They spoke and man listened but man doesn’t listen very
well. He moved deeper and deeper into the forest and over time lost
contact with the water people. Then he started wars and blah blah blah.
But now, the water people are trying to send back one of their own
because a writer is going to write a book that will change the world.
But at the moment he can’t think clearly and the writing is not
happening. The lady in the water, her name is Story, and they must see
each other — only that and then it is done and she can return home.
Only thing is Cleveland Heep found her first.
Most of the
characters we see in the background of the movie all play an integral
part near the end in an effort to get Story home and not eaten by the
creature.
That is what this movie is about.
Genre:
Fantasy / Mystery / Thriller and lets add Horror, ’cause the creature
and the scenes involving the creature are right up there with the
original Howling.
Subject: Lady in the Water 
4th February 2007, 9:43 am
