Lady in the Water

Washington Post Desson Thomson

If the ultimate goal is entertainment, then Lady in the Water enthusiastically rises to the task. In a movie laden with enough symbolism, shamanism and mythic lore to make Joseph Campbell dance a tribal jig, Shyamalan never forgets to have fun.

Boston Globe Wesley Morris

There is a good chunk of Lady in the Water that is simply too well made and affectingly acted to dismiss as a mere exercise in arrogance.

Empire Ian Freer

There is much pleasure to be had watching a born storyteller juggle more balls than even he can carry.

The Hollywood Reporter Kirk Honeycutt

Shyamalan does project genuine menace and suspense into this mundane location, especially in nighttime scenes. But the magic that would transport you from reality into fantasy is missing.

Portland Oregonian Shawn Levy

The man has gifts -- but acting and, it's increasingly clear, storytelling aren't among them.

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

You leave Lady thinking there are still voices in Shyamalan's head well worth a listen.

Newsweek David Ansen

Unfortunately, this narf's a drag: she talks like a fortune cookie and doesn't really do anything. Still, the multicultural cast is fun, the images have a painterly beauty and there are some beguiling comic touches before the story sinks into a swamp of solemn metaphysical glop.

USA Today Mike Clark

The character played by lead Paul Giamatti is a dead-on Shyamalan protagonist: emotionally distanced and something of a train wreck.

Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum

It's hard to think of a deadlier shotgun marriage than Jacques Tourneur's poetry of absence and Spielbergian uplift, but Shyamalan has patented the combo, adding pretentious camera movements that are peculiarly his own--even the jokes are pretty solemn.

Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez

It lacks the simplicity and resonance of classic fairy tales: It's so muddled and belabored, it's hard to imagine the tykes ever staying awake long enough to hear how it all turned out.

New York Daily News Jack Mathews

Lady, like all of Shyamalan's movies, is a slick production with consistently interesting visuals... But the story is so convoluted and ultimately preposterous that you're almost embarrassed by the earnestness of the actors trying to carry it off.

San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle

Has the strengths and weaknesses of a one-man show.

New York Magazine David Edelstein

What's odd about Lady in the Water is that for all Shyamalan's histrionics, he's overcontrolled.

Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum

Shyamalan's most alienating and self-absorbed project to date.

Philadelphia Inquirer Steven Rea

Lady in the Water boasts an eclectic cast - almost entirely squandered.

The New York Times Manohla Dargis

One of the more watchable films of the summer. A folly, true, but watchable.

The Onion (A.V. Club) Nathan Rabin

Shockingly misconceived, poorly executed effort.

Slate Dana Stevens

I will hold against him (Shyamalan) that Lady in the Water isn't scary, that its own inner logic breaks down at countless points along the way, and that its ending is disappointingly literal and just plain stupid. Lady in the Water is, however, funny at times, even intentionally so.

Austin Chronicle Marc Savlov

There are moments of great beauty throughout (the film was lensed by Wong Kar-Wai cinematographer Christopher Doyle), and Shyamalan's heart is nowhere if not on his sleeve, but even these moments cannot steer Lady in the Water clear of its director's zealously over-earnest pretensions.

LA Weekly Scott Foundas

Lady in the Water feels very much like something its author made up as he went along; and, if it weren't so damn weird, it would most certainly put you right to sleep.

Time Richard Corliss

Lady doesn't work. Although he detonates a few terrific frissons involving the scrunt, the stabs at comedy are lurching and arrant. The spreading of tension from one character to many dilutes the mood. The would-be rapturous Spielbergian ending is on the wussy side.

Variety Brian Lowry

A ponderous, self-indulgent bedtime tale. Awkwardly positioned, this gloomy gothic fantasy falls well short of horror.

Chicago Tribune Michael Phillips

The film is a rogue hunk of hooey.

ReelViews James Berardinelli

This is sloppy filmmaking, and it's likely to wipe away whatever luster still remains to Shyamalan's reputation.

TV Guide Maitland McDonagh

The result is a soggy swamp of nyah-nyah-nyah-nyah-nyahing, its only grace notes are Giamatti's fine, nuanced performance as Heep and Christopher Doyle's handsome cinematography.

Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman

This isn't nitpicking. Every bit of the tale is as full of holes as a wool sweater at a moth convention, and Shyamalan telegraphs each potential surprise.

Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow

If you're not a fan of M. Night Shyamalan's convoluted, teasing thrillers, you'll find that getting into this movie is like cracking a puzzle in which the constructor keeps breaking his own rules or grabbing new ones from ultra-thin air.

Salon.com Stephanie Zacharek

Challenges us to believe in the power of myth. But the big challenge here is surviving the tedium of Shyamalan's meandering inventiveness. What's supposed to be fanciful storytelling is really just audience punishment.

Film Threat Pete Vonder Haar

Lady is more of an ensemble picture, and truly the Cove is the most ethnically diverse and community-minded apartment complex in the continental United States.

Los Angeles Times Kevin Crust

There is something bizarrely compelling about the movie. It's slower than watching a train wreck but invokes that same level of disbelief.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer William Arnold

It comes off as tedious, pretentious, self-indulgent, talky and so garbled it might have been improvised by the actors.

Christian Science Monitor Peter Rainer

I suspect audiences will see Shyamalan's portentous doodle for what it is - the height of arrogance and a bad night out at the movies.

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Liam Lacey

Crazy as this might sound, it turns out that self-indulgent ramblings designed to put your children to sleep are pretty much the opposite of art.

New York Post Lou Lumenick

A charmless, unscary, fatuous and largely incoherent fairy tale.

Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern

This cloying piece of claptrap sets a high-water mark for pomposity, condescension, false profundity and true turgidity -- no small accomplishment for the man whose last two features were the deadly duo "Signs" and "The Village."

Village Voice Michael Atkinson

It's as if on some semiconscious level, Shyamalan, who I do not doubt is a serious and self-serious pop-creative original, is calling his own success into question and daring his audience to gulp down larger and spikier clusters of manure, just to see if they will. Or he's lost his mind.