Lady in the Water

I sent out my first Chapter of my thesis yesterday, and finished the main edit on chapter two! And as a treat, Mr. Duck and I went to see Lady in the Water, because I adore Shyamalan, and it was simply too hot to sit in our apartment for 2 more hours.

Seriously, the heat wave thing is killing me. I die a little every summer.

Maybe I should look at teaching in Alaska.

Anyway, loved the movie. Maybe my fave of his yet - I'll have to see it again to say for sure, of course. I'll try for no spoilers :-)

First, the cinematography was great. The coloring was quite moody, but I really loved the way he used mistyness. A couple times, the picture literally blurred out - reflecting the characters states of mind - and it was very effective, it made the scene feel sleepy. Loved it. Mr. Duck thinks he did his 'red' thing again, but I didn't see that, for me it was the water - not just the pool but the rain, the sprinklers, the dripping faucets and showers, very thematic (big surprise, given the title, right?).

A big old surprise in this flick was the humor. I laughed my tush off a couple times. Who goes to see an M. Night Shyamalan for the giggle factor? Not me. Not previously, anyway. But he's a damn clever writer, and the entire theater was laughing out loud during several sequences. Funny ha-ha, not funny strange. Honestly. Go see it and we'll discuss the previously unplumbed depths of his freaking genious.

Also, Shyamalan's little Hitchcokian cameo penchant got turned up a notch or twelve. I expected to see him, but only briefly. But he gave himself and actual role! Hubris? Perhaps. Handsome? Ooooh yeah. Complaints? Nope.

I liked all the acting as well. Shyamalan, even in his less successful movies, manages to get beautiful, unforced performances from all his actors, which may be one of the reasons I like his work so much. This was no exception, and I found myself very drawn to the characters.

Lastly, something that normally bugs me. I knew everything. Without giving stuff away, there are certain characters or symbollic people that become important, and I knew who each and every one was going to be. And yes, there was some misdirection, but none of it fooled me.

Normally, I hate this. I much prefer being surprised by the story and the storyteller. but somehow this time, I enjoyed it. I think it's because there was definate foreshadowing, but it was more subtle than the miscues were. So I kinda felt vindicted, as the truth was revealed, and it was nice seeing the pieces I had in my head come together on screen.

Altogether, very good storytelling. There was the element of scary, but the story itself was very sweet.

Mr. Duck liked it too.