Lady in the Water is the Worst Movie Ever Made

| Posted on |

Every now and then a random question will get Twitter buzzing.

Is a hot dog a sandwich?

Crab Rangoon, things of that nature.

The Lights, Camera, Podcast Twitter account posed a question this morning, however, that needed some thought.

“What’s the worst movie you’ve ever seen?” they asked.

See, they did ask:

For most of my life, the answer has been an easy one.

I haven’t even needed to think about it.

It’s been more of an automatic reaction than a well-thought-out answer.

What’s my favorite color? Blue.

What’s my favorite cut of steak? Ribeye.

Worst movie? Lady in the Water.

I should specify that there are low-budget movies out there that are unwatchable, rom coms that don’t appeal to me, dramas that drag on into eternity.

Then there’s the thousands of B-horror movies and comedies that actually cross the line from so bad that they’re actually good.

Lady in the Water was different.

It had expectations.

It had a big budget at $75 million and was meant to be transcendent, important, fantastical.

Lady in the Water was M. Night Shymamalan’s followup to The Village, a movie I liked a whole hell of a lot more than most folks, and I was pumped about it.

There was that same mystery surrounding Lady in the Water that surrounded Signs, the Sixth Sense, and The Village.

You sort of thought you knew what was going to happen, but you also knew you were probably going to be wrong. That made for intrigue and anticipation.

The cast, led by the usually marvelous Paul Giamatti was a good one, even better now in hindsight as Bryce Dallas Howard has made quite a name for herself with Black Mirror and the Jurassic World Series.

And then there was this trailer:

At the very least, that trailer makes whatever this was look interesting.

In it, there’s dread, horror, and the sense that big things could happen in small places, and those things convinced me to buy a ticket to watch it in a theater in Greenville, Miss.

I should also note that my thoughts are based on a single viewing of a movie from 12 years ago, and there’s a small chance that I would receive it better now than I did, especially considering the fact that 16-year-old Taylor was much more reactionary than I am now.

But I promise you that I will never give that pile of shit another shot.

This was very much a classic case of, “What in the fuck did I just watch?”

I was going to try to recount what happened in the movie per my memory, but I couldn’t do it.

It was just a lengthy space of nothing in my mind.

Instead, I’m going to post this whole plot summary from Wikipedia.

When your eyes go crossed, just skip the rest:

One evening, Cleveland Heep (Paul Giamatti), who became the superintendent of a Philadelphia apartment complex after his family was murdered, discovers Story (Bryce Dallas Howard), a naiad-like character (called a “Narf”) from the Blue World, in his building’s pool, immediately rescuing her from an attack by a “Scrunt”, a grass-covered, wolf-like creature that hides by flattening its body against the turf.

Story is here to find the Author, a specific writer whose book will better humanity’s future. After questioning residents Farber (Bob Balaban), Bell (Mary Beth Hurt), Dury (Jeffrey Wright), and five nameless smokers, Brown discovers the author, Vick Ran (M. Night Shyamalan), who is writing The Cookbook, containing views and ideas so significant they will inspire a future President, a great Midwestern orator, to greatly change the world for the better. Vick meeting Story eliminates his fear and sharpens his inner voice, but he learns he will be assassinated because of the controversial nature of his ideas.

The Tartutic, an invincible simian trio that serve as the Blue World’s peacekeepers, have forbidden Story from being attacked while returning home. The Scrunt nonetheless does just that because Story is destined to be a great leader as well. To recover from her wounds and return safely, she will now need the help of a Symbolist, a Guardian, a Guild, and a Healer. Story believes Heep to be her Guardian; Heep asks Farber, a West Coast émigré turned film critic, to help him figure out the others’ identities. Working off movie tropes, Farber misadvises Heep, leading him to a flawed conclusion that Dury is the Symbolist, the smokers are the Guild, and Bell is the Healer.

Heep asks Story how to “practice” for the confrontation but nearly dies in the process, convincing him he’s not the Guardian. The next night, Farber’s bad advice leads to their plan’s immediate failure. In the confusion, Farber is killed and Story is mortally wounded by the Scrunt. Dury suddenly realizes his son Joey (Noah Gray-Cabey) is the Symbolist. Interpreting the information on cereal boxes, Joey deduces the true Guild is composed of seven sisters, that two new men must be present, and that the Healer is male, soon revealed to be Heep. He goes about healing Story by “bringing forth [his] energy” (his repressed grief). Story’s departure starts again, but the Scrunt attacks; it is stopped by the gaze of Reggie (Freddy Rodríguez), a lopsidedly muscled tenant who is the true Guardian. Reggie’s intense stare and stalking approach compel the Scrunt to slowly retreat, but he is distracted by the cry of the Great Eatlon (a giant eagle who will ferry Story home). When Reggie breaks eye contact, the Scrunt leaps, but the Tartutic arrive and drag it away. Heep thanks Story for saving his life as she hugs him goodbye. The Great Eatlon lands, enfolds Story in one of its wings, and takes flight. The film ends as each tenant watches as she is ferried into the storm.

I think I had a stroke.

There are a lot of words there in an order that doesn’t make a whole lot of sense.

Even on paper it doesn’t work.

On the screen, it’s even worse.

The plot is a mess; the tone makes a mockery of the viewer; none of the characters are particularly likable; and whatever point Shyamalan was trying to make was hopelessly lost in the process.

The worst part of it all is that there were signs of it being something else, a beautiful shot here, an important theme there, a brief flash of clarity, but it was drowned out by the heaviest of hands trying to force us a serious movie about a grass wolf, an eagle, and a water woman.

I was expecting greatness from Shyamalan again, but it turned out to be the beginning of his wild descent into one absurd failure after another.

He’s since begun a renaissance of sorts, but I may never be able to forgive Shyamalan for this audiovisual assault of my senses that was Lady in the Water.