In an interview with The Atlantic, M. Night Shyamalan defends his 2006 clunker “The Lady in the Water”. He still “loves” the movie. What many viewers saw as chaos, he sees as a kind of “jazz.”
This isn’t the first time Shyamalan has defended ‘Lady in the Water.’ He actually wrote a freaking book about it, accusing Disney of not giving the film’s script “a truthful reading” and added that he believed the movie was rejected because the studio “no longer valued individualism.”
Shyamalan has continued to call the $70M film “brilliant and misunderstood.” Back in 2006, “The Lady in the Water” was destroyed by critics, and for good reason. It was a puzzling piece of claptrap filled with pomposity, condescension, false profundity. The film also infamously featured a character who, inexplicably, worked out only one side of his body, as a "scientific experiment," for no apparent reason — one arm and leg were vastly more muscular than the other arm and leg.
This isn’t the first time Shyamalan has defended one of his critically reviled films. Back in 2019, he vouched hard for his 2008 hiccup “The Happening,” starring Mark Wahlberg, saying that audiences and critics missed the tone he was going for on that film (“farce humor”).
At least in the Atlantic interview Shyamalan isn’t able to defend his ensuing films (“The Last Airbender” “After Earth”) which he calls the “hired gun” phase of his career, working on other people’s ideas instead of his own. “I’m so bad at that […] I’m so bad at it, and I felt so empty.”
After those bombs, Shyamalan took out a loan against his house to fund 2015’s “The Visit,” which cost $5M to produce and ended up grossing $100M worldwide. This was his comeback vehicle. His winning streak continued with 2016’s “Split” which cost $9M and ended up grossing almost $300M worldwide.
So, now Shyamalan is back at making mid-budget thrillers aimed at adults. His latest one, “Trap,” is being released on Friday, except it hasn’t been screened for press and won’t be. I’ll be buying a ticket to watch it during the weekend.
Criterion's December lineup has some great additions to the library, but the title that jumped out at me is Werner Herzog's "Grizzly Man," which officially joins the Collection on December 8.