Lady in the Water
Warner Bros. Pictures | Release Date: July 21, 2006 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
36
METASCORE
Generally unfavorable reviews based on 36 Critics
Positive:
2
Mixed:
20
Negative:
14
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
70
Washington PostDesson 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. Read full review
63
Boston GlobeWesley 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. Read full review
60
The Hollywood ReporterKirk 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. Read full review
60
EmpireIan Freer
There is much pleasure to be had watching a born storyteller juggle more balls than even he can carry. Read full review
58
Portland OregonianShawn Levy
The man has gifts -- but acting and, it's increasingly clear, storytelling aren't among them. Read full review
50
New York Magazine (Vulture)David Edelstein
What's odd about Lady in the Water is that for all Shyamalan's histrionics, he's overcontrolled. Read full review
50
Entertainment WeeklyLisa Schwarzbaum
Shyamalan's most alienating and self-absorbed project to date. Read full review
50
Philadelphia InquirerSteven Rea
Lady in the Water boasts an eclectic cast - almost entirely squandered. Read full review
50
The New York TimesManohla Dargis
One of the more watchable films of the summer. A folly, true, but watchable. Read full review
50
USA TodayMike Clark
The character played by lead Paul Giamatti is a dead-on Shyamalan protagonist: emotionally distanced and something of a train wreck. Read full review
50
Chicago ReaderJonathan 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. Read full review
50
Miami HeraldRene 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. Read full review
50
New York Daily NewsJack 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. Read full review
50
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalle
Has the strengths and weaknesses of a one-man show. Read full review
50
Rolling StonePeter Travers
You leave Lady thinking there are still voices in Shyamalan's head well worth a listen. Read full review
50
NewsweekDavid 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. Read full review
42
The A.V. ClubNathan Rabin
Shockingly misconceived, poorly executed effort. Read full review
40
VarietyBrian Lowry
A ponderous, self-indulgent bedtime tale. Awkwardly positioned, this gloomy gothic fantasy falls well short of horror. Read full review
40
TimeRichard 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. Read full review
40
Austin ChronicleMarc 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. Read full review
40
L.A. WeeklyScott 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. Read full review
40
SlateDana 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. Read full review
38
ReelViewsJames Berardinelli
This is sloppy filmmaking, and it's likely to wipe away whatever luster still remains to Shyamalan's reputation. Read full review
38
Chicago TribuneMichael Phillips
The film is a rogue hunk of hooey. Read full review
38
TV Guide MagazineMaitland 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. Read full review
38
Charlotte ObserverLawrence 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. Read full review
33
Baltimore SunMichael 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. Read full review
30
Los Angeles TimesKevin Crust
There is something bizarrely compelling about the movie. It's slower than watching a train wreck but invokes that same level of disbelief. Read full review
30
SalonStephanie 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. Read full review
30
Film ThreatPete 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. Read full review
25
Christian Science MonitorPeter 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. Read full review
25
Seattle Post-IntelligencerWilliam Arnold
It comes off as tedious, pretentious, self-indulgent, talky and so garbled it might have been improvised by the actors. Read full review
25
New York PostLou Lumenick
A charmless, unscary, fatuous and largely incoherent fairy tale. Read full review
25
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. Read full review
10
Village VoiceMichael 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. Read full review
10
Wall Street JournalJoe 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."
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