Lady In The Water Details

WASTE OF TIME

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

[Highly rated reviewer]

Could have been so much better

The film is, overall, a good film – however it could have been so much better. There are flaws that really jar against the flow of the story, and there are too many characters involved to really care about any of them. Most serious flaw is in one character, a snobby film critic, who seems to be in the film purely to point out that “if critics don’t like this film then it is because they forgot how to enjoy films years ago so don’t listen to them” and “if any adults don’t like this it is because they forget how to be a kid”. Any film that feels it has to tell you how old you have to be to enjoy it is treading uneasy ground.

With a bit of editing this could have been an excellent film. The mythology of the creatures seems interesting, but underplayed. The cast are, in general, likeable, with Giamatti being on excellent form once more. Bryce Dallas Howard (as the mysterious girl from the water) is perfectly cast, her mysterious unconventional beauty adding to the mysteriousness of her character. Direction from M Night is as strong as ever, with a few great ‘jump’ moments, and elements of Hitchcockian suspense thrown in. Music complements, rather than controls the proceedings. All in all there is a fantastic film in here….somewhere. However the flaws do disrupt the flow too much, and work against the fabric of the tale.