A college professor once told me that the key to any successful science fiction or fantasy narrative is a clear and concise set of rules. As a writer, you are in complete control of any alternate universe you create, and have to make sure that you set specific boundaries and limits. Without them, your story will have a tendency to scatter, losing its grip on the false truth you’re forging and crashing, headlong, into the reality in which we truly live. It’s even more perilous when you try to meld the two. Myth doesn’t react well to modernity, and the more you try to push the two together, the more aggressively they will try to stay apart. On it’s surface, the story of a troubled apartment superintendent who discovers a beautiful, baffling creature on his doorstep one evening should make for something compelling and emotional. But instead, it’s an exercise in insularity that never gels into the fascinating fable it thinks it is. It’s a huge problem for the latest release from that twist-ending trademark M. Night Shyamalan. Even with his considerable cinematic skill, Lady in the Water is his most inert movie to date.

It’s clear from the first few moments our otherworldly figure shows up. A porcelain pawn in the director’s desire to meld fairytales with faith, our so-called ‘narf’ is like mankind’s Jiminy Cricket. These sea creatures show up every once in a while to give human’s bumbling moral direction a hand. She needs to connect with certain people, to inspire them to greatness beyond their current state and lead them toward their undeniable fate. She’s therefore a Calvinist catalyst, preaching predetermination while shivering at the thought of the grass-covered wolves that lie in wait to poison her. If we buy the premise – and trust me, it’s a pretty hard sell – then we can accept the rest of the rituals. As our guide, Paul Giamatti (playing the unfortunately named Cleveland Heep) tries his best to instill an aura of magic into what is going on. He obviously has a handle on the conventions involved. But it’s Shyamalan himself that seems to be uncertain as to what those made-up mandates really are. All throughout it’s running time, Lady in the Water tends to make up its rules as it goes along, giving new or tangential powers to elements and individuals out of a sheer need for plotting or cleverness. One moment all hope is lost. A quick trip to our Asians as exposition, and we’re back on track.

A perfect example comes after Story (so our heroine is called) fails to initially unite with her giant eagle guardian. Since this incident occurs within the first half hour of the film, we know there needs to be an alternative method of closure. But said ‘Plan B’ becomes the entire rest of the narrative and never makes a great deal of sense. New ephemeral beings are introduced – the Symbolist, the Guild, a gang of super evil monkeys – and different interpretations are giving to concepts we thought were concrete. This is obviously Shyamalan’s perceived way of keeping us on our toes. It’s also why he has a completely pointless film critic character become the patsy for our usual predictability. The crab, played with complete cynicism by Bob Balaban, thinks he knows it all, unwittingly argues for the purpose of certain individuals that we’ve seen in the film, and then gets his exclamation mark comeuppance in a way that defies his so-called intellect. All groan-inducing jabs to my fellow reviewers aside, Balaban is equally responsible for calling out the audience. It’s one of Shyamalan’s several “dares”. If you don’t buy into his scattershot saga, you are just as dim as this closed off detractor.

From an acting standpoint, there is a great deal here that is good. Shyamalan has been taken to task for casting himself in the substantial supporting role (as a writer who may be the narf’s Earthbound target). Beside the egotistical world-changing implications, he does have a couple of nice scenes where his soft-spoken introspection works. And, as stated before, Giamatti delivers his typical grandness. As a matter of fact, his performance angers us because it seems that all of his efforts are basically going to waste. The biggest disappointment however is Bryce Dallas Howard. Her turn is as colorless as her complexion, and the lack of anything interesting for Story to do really undermines Shyamalan’s mythology. Such a creature should be something other than a good looking doormat for the people she’s supposed to inspire. From a directing standpoint, there are wonderful visual turns and the familiar Shyamalan forewarning with scenes and situations set to pay off later on. Here, though, he’s developed a habit of over the shoulder shots that’s grows increasingly annoying. But it’s the writing that eventually ruins this film. There is probably an engaging story to be told about a race of sentient sea beings desperate to steer mankind into a more soulful, sensible direction. This chaotic cautionary tale needed a far more firm alternative reality in which to work. Without it, it becomes just another preposterous bit of failed folklore.

5.5 out of 10

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