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Lady in the Water
Warner Bros. Pictures


6.9

based on 36 reviews
Read critic reviews
How did we calculate this?

based on 322 votes
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Rate this movie

FILM:

MPAA RATING: PG-13 for some frightening sequences

Starring Paul Giamatti, Bryce Dallas Howard, Bob Balaban, Jeffrey Wright, Sarita Choudhury, Freddy Rodríguez, Bill Irwin, and Jared Harris

M. Night Shyamalan's bedtime story comes to the big screen.

GENRE(S):	Drama \| Fantasy \| Mystery \| Suspense/Thriller
WRITTEN BY:	M. Night Shyamalan
DIRECTED BY:	M. Night Shyamalan
RELEASE DATE:	DVD: December 19, 2006 Theatrical: July 21, 2006
RUNNING TIME:	110 minutes, Color
ORIGIN:	USA

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

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.

The average user rating for this movie is 6.9 (out of 10) based on 322 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Chris M. gave it a1:
Shyamalan's faithful audience has been supporting him since the Sixth Sense's wonderful surprise but this is no such movie!He overloaded the film with numerous character's,confusing ideas,mythic creatures and stupid anti-critic allegories as if he is trying to prove how imaginative he can be,turning it into a chaotic mess with no substance or purpose,It's to immature even for a child to watch and the attempt of making a bedtime story is no excuse.The worst thing is that he tries to even lure humoristic moments out of it.An undeniable mind-f*ck!

Stephen P gave it a10:
This is my favorite movie. People who review these films should not be taken so seriously. This film is not a horror movie, but an incredible story of love, redemption, and sacrifice. Those words could be used to describe many films, but as a teenage boy who is quite a film enthusiast, never have I seen a film that has impressed me more in the acting department (let alone cinematography, music, or direction) than Lady in the Water. I am not a fan of Shyamalan at all, as I didn't like Sixth Sense, Signs, or the Happening. But this movie, this is something different. This movie made me want to make films when I grow up. This movie actually changed my life, and M Night's character in the movie wasn't him blowing his own horn... he was simply filling the part of a character who was in the BEDTIME STORY he thought up for his kids. I love this movie, and I only wish that people could have another chance to see this. I was fourteen when I saw this film, and I cried. I was a fourteen year old teenage boy... and I cried. Paul Giamatti, Bryce Dallas Howard, (heck, even Bob Baraban) do a fantastic job. This movie will one day (hopefully) be seen for what it really is: a cinematic masterpiece. Obviously, my views are shared with a few other folk around, the high ratings for this movie are aplenty on this website. Thank you, M Night Shyamalan for changing my life with your beautiful film, and thank you Metacritic for allowing my voice to be heard. Peace.

Brandon T gave it a6:
A weird movie but oddly entertaining and chilling. Shyamalan mixes some humor and horror in this powerful film. Not the strongest of his set though and certainly not a classic.

Steve F gave it a10:
Seeing most of the reviews for this movie I can see that you will either love it or hate. I love it!

Dan F. gave it a1:
I enjoy fantasy films, and I like all of M. Night's other films, but this was downright terrible.

Luis c gave it a3:
Boring...no sense movie! If you have problems to sleep just see this movie.

Vx Dx gave it a10:
Simply beautiful. I don't understand why people are so stupid as to think that just because the director made a horror movie or two in the past, his next movie is also a horror movie. Lady in the Water is not a horror movie - and imo, even Night's previous movies were not horror movies. Since people ( especially critics ) are so used to categorizing every movie they see into one of the genres, they are not ready to think out of the box with a movie like this. And Night's bash on critics is just brilliant! One of the wonderful things about this movie is that there is not 'fantasy world' here. There is only reality through and through.

Lady in the Water Warner Bros. Pictures

Lady in the Water
Warner Bros. Pictures