I saw this at a screening among people who work in the film industry. Many audience members were laughing at the muddled self-indulgent mess on the screen. And no wonder. Myself, I was mostly moaning, wishing I had sat closer to an aisle or an exit. And I actually went into this film expecting to like it......The script is incomprehensible and illogical. I realize this is "meant" to be a fable, but it's mostly the director --- who mugs his way through a key role in his own film, getting his own good side most of the time --- who's really out to lecture us. In passing, we get a middle class housing project in "Philadelphia" which seems to be situated with suburbs on one side and a national wildlife preserve on the other. We meet a mythical beast which looks like a crocadoggy, which appears at a building wide party but no one notices. Paul Giammati, who wears glasses in the film, manages what seems to be a hyper-athletic underwater dive without glasses or goggles that would have taxed an experience scuba diver. A film critic gets torn apart by the monster in a building corridor but no one notices (is M-Night suggesting something here?) and there is a really nasty racial sterotype of an Asian girl, a "college student," who speaks we-all-sound-same funny-rice-girl English. Uh, why funny accent for Asian girl, Mr. Filmmaker, when Indian-American film director-actor talk so good? Funny accent no essential to plot, so why include, hey? And, Yo, Shammy, that Eagle at the end? A Philadelphia Eagle? I don't see Dead People here, but I'm starting to see a writer/director who has shot his creative wad.
Review of Lady in the Water
