Lady In The Water vs Scream

First off, you should know: She’s never in the water. At least not on camera. She lives under the swimming pool, so we get the idea that she’s been in the water. And later, she’s in the shower, and she sure seems to like it. But for all we know, she can’t even swim. So, Lady in the Water should have a question mark at the end.

Everything that happens in Lady in the Water happens off camera. Even things that happen on camera happen off camera. Time and again characters have conversations, with one of them off screen. A character will look off to the left, and we assume the other person is there, but we have no way of knowing. Or, one character will stand with their back blocking the camera completely. We look at his or her shirt while the characters discuss the plot. They discuss the plot a lot. Over and over. Constantly. Let’s do the same, shall we?

Cleveland (Paul Giamatti) is a building super. He thinks someone has been swimming after hours in the pool (well who can blame them; it’s only open until 7). One night he’s out trying to figure out who it is, when he falls and hits his head. He wakes up in his apartment being watched over by Story, who claims to come from the Blue World. She’s quite eloquent sometimes, and sometimes she speaks like a child, and other times she doesn’t speak at all, because she can’t, and must tug on her hair or tap the wall to communicate. So, she’s from an underwater world, talks gibberish, and shows up uninvited? Great, it’s that JarJar Binks movie we’ve all been waiting for. But, in no time at all, Cleveland believes her. Story needs to get back home, and the only way is for her to be outside when the Great Eagle (or something) flies over, so it can carry her back to the ocean. The problem is that the Scrunt is waiting outside. The Scrunt is sort of like a hyena, or maybe, oh, I dunno, an American Werewolf in London, only it has grass instead of hair and can hide in your yard. It won’t attack her if the Eagle’s there, unless it’s a Rogue Scrunt. If it does, though, there’s the monkey in the tree, who has one name, but looks like three monkeys, and will jump down and defend Story against the Scrunt, if it comes to that. Otherwise, Cleveland might be an Interpreter, or a Guardian, in which case it might be up to him to get Story home, and he’ll need a mirror to find the Scrunt, and when he does, all he has to do is look it in the eyes, and it won’t bother him. Unless…

Are you following any of this? Cleveland gets the entire apartment complex involved, and they can’t wait to help, no questions asked. At least not on camera. Story sits in Cleveland’s apartment, while he runs back and forth to the apartment of an Asian student (who speaks in a confusingly harsh accent I haven’t heard from anyone besides old Jonny Quest villains and Margaret Cho’s impersonation of her mother) to get more details about the story. I mean Story. Wait, no, story, lowercase. See, the story of Story is actually an old Eastern bedtime fable. We’re told it’s like a prayer, and I’m here to tell you: that’s one long prayer. Every couple scenes, he rushes back for more details from the girl’s mother. It’s incredibly detailed and confusing for a bedtime story, and every tenant is necessary to its progression. The stoners, the crossword puzzle expert, the kid who reads cereal boxes, the animal-lover, the guy who’s always on the toilet, and most importantly, the beloved writer, whom Story says will some day inspire change in the world through his brilliant thoughts. He’s played by M. Night Shyamalan. No comment.

Lady in the Water sucks.

Lady in the Water isn’t just bad; it’s the most laughably pretentious stunt since Michael Jackson built that giant statue of himself to promote his greatest hits album. Have you ever seen The Mirror has Two Faces? The one where Barbra Streisand played the plain, lonely sister who has low self-esteem, only to find out that her inner hottie is just waiting to come out? And the entire cast spends the movie telling her how beautiful she is? And it was directed by Barbra Streisand? Lady in the Water trumps that. The ego being stroked belongs to M. Night Shyamalan, and he manages to make the love-in focus not only on his character, but also his real-life self, his shitty previous movie, and the shitty movie he’s currently in. We all know to expect a surprise twist in M. Night Shyamalan movies, but I had no idea that this one would be that the main character isn’t the Lady in the Water, but  rather the Guy from the Credit Card Commercials. Can’t he be like Woody Allen and cast someone else to impersonate him?

Lady in the Water is one of those movies that you’ll be mentally re-writing as it goes along. It has an answer for every question you might think of, but they all feel made-up on the spot. If a movie is going to have rules, it should stick to them, and if it breaks the rules, maybe there could be some kind of trade-off. You know, like a character dies. That’s it: let’s remake Lady in the Water, and every time someone asks a stupid question or wants to change a rule, they get cut in half by a garage door. That movie would rock.

Scream accomplished a lot of the stuff Lady in the Water sought out. Scream isn’t even close to being a fable, but it is a genre-buster, and it toys with the conventions of its peers by listing the rules built into each. The best part is: once the rules are announced, they don’t change. Break the rules? Die.

I know you’ve seen Scream a dozen times already, and after seeing Lady in the Water, you aren’t likely to be open to the suggestion that you spend two hours with Skeet Ulrich, Jamie Kennedy and Matthew Lillard (man, screw you, ‘90s.) So, I’ll make you a deal: if you sat through Lady in the Water, the whole thing, then you can turn off Scream after you’ve watched the initial fifteen minutes. Four times.

Seriously, it bears replaying. Those opening moments of Scream are brilliant. Drew Barrymore makes like a modern-day Marion Crane; obviously she’s the main character, right? I mean, she’s the biggest star. She’s all flirty on the phone, rocking the blond wig. I would love to hear the story behind this scene. Does Barrymore know what’s going to happen? Because it looks like she doesn’t. The screaming, crying, shaking: it all feels almost shockingly real. Watch it again; she seems about five seconds away from peeing her pants. It all takes about ten minutes, and not only is it the most believable moment of fear in a horror movie (I think it tops even Marilyn Burns in the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre), it delivers more thrills, intelligence and good writing than two hours of Story, Scrunts and One Monkey that Looks Like Three.

Lady in the Water: F
Scream: B+