The publicity build-up for M. Night Shyamalan’s latest film, The Lady in the Water (opening this coming Friday), has begun with some shatteringly bad buzz. It’s too bad, because I’ve been a fan of Shyamalan’s four major films, even the ones that haven’t had a great critical reception. (The Village, for instance, offered a nice critique of religious fundamentalism, I thought. And isn’t The Sixth Sense really a film about reincarnation and the Hindu/Buddhist concept of Moksha, albeit explored through the proxy of Catholicism?)
Some of the publicity isn’t so bad. To begin with, Shyamalan’s got two profiles in the east coast papers today, one in the New York Times and another in the Philadelphia Inquirer. The Inquirer likes him, because he’s a local boy and he’s stayed local: he owns a house in Gladwyne (not far from where I live, actually), and created a monster set in nearby Levittown for Lady in the Water. The Times is a little more lukewarm, focusing on a silly trick documentary shot (with Shyamalan’s approval) to accompany the release of The Village, and on Shyamalan’s apparently rampant narcissism.
Shyamalan has probably helped to undo his mystique a bit by taking himself too seriously. There is a sketchy-looking biography of him coming out this Thursday, called The Man Who Heard Voices: How M. Night Shyamalan Risked His Career On a Fairy Tale. From this New York Times review, the book looks highly embarrassing. Among other things, it details Shyamalan’s split with Disney during the early phase of script-writing. And while some of the reasons Shyamalan gives for the split seem like good ones (Disney “wasn’t allowing it to be visceral”), others seem pretty trivial: he apparently wasn’t happy with how his assistant was treated by Disney’s executives; and he was annoyed they didn’t want him to cast himself in one of the major roles. As for the film itself, the early word is not encouraging. I was particularly struck by the casual negativity of this Reuters review (note: the review has lots of spoilers). Sometimes, when reviewers don’t have a lot of obvious criticisms to make, they find ways to hate the film anyway. Lady in the Water seems like it might become one of those films.
More bad buzz is this massacre by David Edelstein in New York Magazine:
WhatÂ’s odd about Lady in the Water is that for all ShyamalanÂ’s histrionics, heÂ’s overcontrolled. His emotions might be stirred, but ours arenÂ’t; heÂ’s good only at alienation or flat-out horror-movie horror—things that go “Boo!” (HeÂ’s like any B-director—he jacks up the volume when the beasties jump out at you.) (link)
But Edelstein is so vicious and show-offy here that his hatchet job isn’t as damning as the Reuters review I linked to above. Edelstein is proving to his readers that he’s smarter than the filmmaker; I don’t know if what he says is really about the film. (Will have to see it and find out.)
Shyamalan does have a kind of rebuttal to the movie reviewer culture in Lady in the Water itself: one of the characters — presumably among the first to die — is a snarky film critic. And at least in public Shyamalan seems to have a clear head about the value (or lack thereof) of critics’ opinions here:
If you get caught up in too much of this, you lose your mind, because it’s all a momentary perception thing that happens. These movies are so clouded by the other movies or being a part of the group, or the expectations, that it can be damaging to you as an artist. So I get a general sense. Signs is my best-reviewed movie, next is Unbreakable, and then next is “Sixth Sense” and then next is The Village. Signs is also my most popcorn movie, so the least aspiring to a higher thing. It’s that aspiring to something higher that always gets everyone going “Oh, yeah, motherfucker?” That gets everybody all riled up. If everything were re-reviewed now, it probably would be a different group of reviews that would come out. (link)
Here Shyamalan gets at one of the elements of his films that seems to bother a lot of reviewers (though not me), and that is his penchant for fairy-tale like plot symmetries. To me, there’s something really beautiful about a story simple enough that anyone and everyone understands it. And when the story also has broad social significance (i.e., a “big idea,” aspirations to “something higher”), it can have great power. While I wouldn’t say that Shyamalan’s films up to this point have been flawless, I do think that he’s managed to at least aspire to “higher things” in commercial cinema in a way that few other present-day filmmakers have done.
I actually dig his Night name… personally though, I’d pick Danger just so that I can tell everyone that Danger is my middle name. 😉 hehe
I’ve heard two stories for “Night”; the first is that he had become very interested in Native American culture and took the name in honor of their naming conventions, the second is that it’s a college nickname. I’ve heard the latter explanation more often and if it’s true, I think it’s a bit cruel to mock it as “ridiculous”. What’s up with that, indeed.
As for the necklace that someone disparaged upthread, it was a gift from his Father and is inscribed with Sanskrit words. His Dad wanted him to wear it for “protection”, which, again, I won’t belittle because that’s no different from my Mother wanting me to wear the Orthodox cross her Father purchased for me…
His movies may not be universally brilliant and soul-nourishing, but I think some of the crit that gets lobbed his way is…shit.
ragging on Sting AND M.Night? I’m leaving.
I like most of Shyamalan’s work. Yes hes a local philly boy which makes the locals happy. His family is down to earth too. My husband treated his grandfather in a Chennai hospital (just a regular nice grandpa type) not demanding any extra attention. He was there right after Sixth Sense came out. I always wondered about families of celebrities…I guess the down to earth ones never change..thats good
A good story is a good story, regardless of who he made it up for.
His full name is Manoj Nelliyattu Shyamalan, hence the “Night”. Nelliyattu is a Malayalee family name.
“Shyamalan was born in Pondicherry, India[2], and is of South Indian heritage: His father, Nelliattu C. Shyamalan, a physician, is a Malayalee, and his mother, Jayalakshmi (called Jaya), an obstetrician and gynecologist, is a Tamil [3]. In the 1960s, after medical school and the birth of their first child, Veena, Shyamalan’s parents moved to the United States. Shyamalan’s mother returned to India to spend the last five months of her pregnancy with him at her parents’ home.
“Shyamalan spent his first six weeks in Pondicherry, and then was raised in Penn Valley, Pennsylvania, an affluent Main Line suburb of Philadelphia. He attended the private Catholic grammar school Waldron Academy, which his parents chose for its academic discipline [4], followed by The Episcopal Academy, a private Episcopalian high school in nearby Lower Merion. Shyamalan went on to New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts, in Manhattan, graduating in 1992…. [read more]“
Yes, who thought that would be a good idea?
Thanks, Manish. Rockstar rebuttal.
Dear MG: That referred to ‘Lady in the Water’ and MNS and not to Paul Giamatti.
Dear gq: I do agree that there’s an element of standing-up-for-one-of-our-own involved here.
Probably because (1) he is a good actor and (2) he is so ugly that the critics can identify with him. 😉
Dear Mr Kobayashi,
Very intersting sense of humour; I really like it. Do you have a blog, or do you only comment on SM?
Very impressive, indeed. 😉
Dear Manish: Rockstart rebuttl indeed.
I was fascinated by the discussion about whether Shyamalan should branch out into other genres. Maybe, he would; maybe he wouldn’t. Either way, it wouldn’t be an easy decision. I have an (intereting?) theory about it.
When you are good at doing something, but not as good as you would want to be, you keep on trying out variations of doing that specific something in slightly different ways, until you hit the perfect variation. I think that’s what has happened to Shyamalan.
He is generaly acknowledged to be good at a genre of movie-making, the fairy-tale horror movie with a twist ending, if you might. However, given his aspirations towards something higher and his evident narcissism (which, I have a feeling, is tempered by awareness), he probably isn’t quite satisfied with his oeuvre. Therefore, he makes movies which are similar in the feel, if not in the plot itself.
I think that he will make a few more such movies until he (thinks that he) has perfected the ‘Shyamalan twist’. And then, he will probably feel free to make an action movie with a twist, or a twisted variation on the screwball comedy.
SPOILER ALERT
I guess that’s my issue, his plots are beginning to overlap a tad too close. But the Shyamalan twist, by his own admission, has never been the intended story conclusion. He’s always wanted audiences to go “oh, oh! that’s what that was” then forget about it the next second and get back into the stories true conclusion, and ultimately the true theme.
Sixth Sense – Doc is really dead, but story isn’t about whether he’s dead or not, it’s about him reconciling his two passions, his wife and his profession.
Unbreakable – Sam Jackson killed everyone to find David Dunn, but story isn’t about who killed those people, it’s about Elijah discovering his purpose in life, despite having a debilitating disease.
Signs – Wife says “swing away” and Merril swings away at end to kill alien with water, story isn’t about aliens invading a town, it’s about rediscovering faith after you lose it in the worst possible way.
Village – monsters are fake, real story: Love is that potent force, causing you to withstand your worst fear. (I’m a little iffy on this one, because narratively it’s a bit of a mess, act 1 and act 2 have different protagonists)
This differs from say, the usual suspects (which is a fantastic movie), where the entire movie poses the question “Who is Keyser Soze?” and the twist answers it.
We’ll see when the box office numbers hit.
I watched the premiere today. It’s not supposed to be a scary movie. He made this movie for his 2 daughters so it’s kids friendly.( I am surprised Disney wouldn’t want to make a movie like this) Movie has few classic Shymalan moments of suspense but mostly it’s a great bed time story 🙂 At the premeier Night said that this movie is his “ET” although world may be too cynical to appreciate this kind of a story now. Nevertheless, this is the story he wanted to narrate and he did just that. As any of his other movies this one too is about having faith or believing in something/someone! P.S. Both Night and Sarita Choudhary did justice to their roles. But, Paul was just brilliant!
Alright, here’s my prediction. And we can make whatever claims about the unjust treatment Night is receiving at the hands of the critical community. But after the film has come out, return to my prediction and see if the following has come to pass.
I’m hearing about some of the reviews that have yet to be published/posted, and I know someone who went to a screening. And I’m predicting it will be among the worst reviewed films in history. I’ll go further: Shyamalan’s sanity will come into question.
Word is, it’s certainly a very daring film to put out there. It has a very innovative look, there are no stars to speak of from an audience’s standpoint, and the screenplay is supposedly nothing but endless exposition. But many critics won’t appreciate it, and neither will many audience members. In a sense, Night really lucked out with The Village. Despite the critical drubbing, it made a goodly profit and a modest fanbase has emerged in support of it. Maybe it took a year or two, but it happened. And in time a significant fanbase may emerge for Lady in the Water as well. He is working with Christopher Doyle who is perhaps the greatest cinematographer alive today, and any of Doyle’s films is worthy of further examination. And like The Village, Lady in the Water is supposed to be wholly allegorical, but what this allegory is, exactly, will be lost on most people upon immediate impact (except that there clearly is one, and that’s going to compound the resentment). In time, some people will come to understand and apprectiate the movie as some already have with The Village… but in this case it will take MUCH longer, and probably too long for Night to recover from. Maybe you can gamble on the goodwill of critics* and audiences by producing one dumbfounding is-it-a-masterpiece-or-is-it-a-fiasco? film. But not two of them, or at least not two in a row. And apparantly, the role Shamyalan cast himself in is going to be a MAJOR point of contention.
On the other hand, bad reviews haven’t stopped The Da Vinci Code, The Break-Up, the new Pirates movie and Adam Sandler’s recent suck-fest from being hits, so anything can happen. And perhaps enough critics will come to his defence. Another ET may be too much to hope for, though.
*And by the way, these critics everyone is thrashing are the same ones who helped establish Night’s rep in the first place, giving him good reviews for all his major studio films except The Village. In fact, it was the critics and the media who proclaimed Night “The Next Spielberg” a few years back, gracing him with a cover story on Newsweek Magazine. Maybe Night is being unfairly knocked down. But they’re the ones partly responsible for propping him up so high in the first place.
“*And by the way, these critics everyone is thrashing are the same ones who helped establish Night’s rep in the first place, giving him good reviews for all his major studio films except The Village. In fact, it was the critics and the media who proclaimed Night “The Next Spielberg” a few years back, gracing him with a cover story on Newsweek Magazine. Maybe Night is being unfairly knocked down. But they’re the ones partly responsible for propping him up so high in the first place.”
mg: This is not true at all. If you recall, all the critics bashed Sixth Sense — until, based on word-of-mouth, the box office numbers went through the roof. In fact, I think all his movies have had more bad reviews than good ones. In the end, it’s been ticket sales which have been responsible for his success — nothing else. The hype has always been that he somehow doesn’t deserve being put on the same level as Spielberg and Hitchcock.
I predict that Lady will be a money maker too.
Gawd! Check our rottentomatoes …… Lady gets 20%, same as You, Me and Dupree and just a little more than the horrible Little Man…… Superman gets 77! Unfair!
Still.a.fob, that out of only 10 reviews, and a couple of the people who’ve weighed in are small timers (“emmanuellevy.com” ?!). I’m sure the final approval rating will be low, but it won’t stay quite this low as more people see it.
There’s also an interesting defense of his work as a whole in the Village Voice this week.
Given that it has only 3 “Cream of the Crop” reviews, it’s a little unfair to compare LitW with other movies that have already come out. But I agree, it doesn’t bode well.
No, what YOU just said is incorrect. On Rotten Tomatoes, The Sixth Sense has 83% positive reviews. And nearly all of those reviews are published on or before the day the film is released. Box office had nothing to do with it. Critics don’t bo back and rewrite reviews in their newspapers a month after a film’s opening.
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/sixth_sense/
How about a link that works? 🙂
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/sixth_sense/
Yo! Stop by the Tir Na Nog sometime!
re: #60
Thanks for the props, Gaurav.
All I am is a brain in a vat hooked up to the North Dakota server.
And the enforcer of a shadowy crime empire.
Did anyone see him on the Daily Show yesterday? He really had no substance in describing his film or for anything else for that matter.
agree. no substance, though he didn’t have much of a chance with jon stewart doing most of the talking. still, night came off like a brown swingers/entourage hollywood type, all the way to the mannerisms and the haircut. not really surprising since that really is the dominant type in hollywood.
And the world hotdog-eating champion.
I contain multitudes.
Fyi: There was an Ain’t it Cool screening of Lady in the Water earlier in the year. The reviews were so terrible that Warners pulled the second of two screenings to ‘retool’….
There are now 58 reviews on Rotten Tomatoes, and the grade is only 26%. And even that is probably grade inflation, because the Salon review that’s considered ‘fresh’ is clearly ‘rotten’. And another one of the ‘fresh’ reviews is mistakenly for… Monster House?
And however nice the Village Voice defense is, their movie critic is one of the vicious nay-sayers.
Sorry, but stick a fork in it.
gq, Ok, I surrender: looks like we’re having Grilled Flop for dinner!
Manola Dargis at the NYT has measured praise: “watchable“.
The film is still probably doa.
And here’s a defense of his work in Slate.
He needs all the help he can get at this point. But Slate is another publication (if you can call online sites “publications”) where the reviewer panned the film.
Had Lady in the Water received better notices, you wouldn’t see any defences. No defence would be necessary. But sometimes this is what happens when we put all our hopes into one horse. He may stumble one too many times. What’s needed is more American Desi filmmakers. Night isn’t and shouldn’t be the be-all and (especially) end-all.
I’ll say one thing that MNS nails very well, almost all the time, is the score and sound design for his films. James Newton Howard and Hilary Hahn did a fantastic job in the Village, it was nominated for best score, but lost to finding neverland.
I think that the 6th sense was his best work. I think he is a little full of himself right now and is trying to be the next Speilberg, without the numerous successful films.
The main problem with Night (I wish he never chose this ridiculous name, what’s wrong with Manoj?), is that he is not a good writer. On the other hand he is an excellent director. He creates a wonderful sense of mood and motion in his movies that is positively captivating, but the stories/scripts are very mediocre and amateurish. Has any one watched the Sixth Sense again, and paid attention to the script? The twist ending was essentially the whole movie. My suggestion to my sepia brother would be to stick to directing, and leave the stories, scripts, and even acting to the professionals. And that’s OK, one cannot be good at everything! This way he can select the best stories and scripts the world has to offer, and do what he really does best, directing.
Apparently, some very misguided people that try kid stories for live action.
A couple of nights ago, Craig Ferguson made fun of Shyamalan’s movies on his show, saying how all the characters in his movies whispered their lines, and he wanted to ask them to speak up. All in good fun, I suppose, but what bothered me was that Craig Ferguson kept saying “Shalaman”. He could have made some effort to get the name right considering he was mocking the guy’s work.
I love M. Night Shyamalan’s movies. My favorites are Unbreakable and The Sixth Sense. To me The Village was both critique and possible apologetic for shield-you-from-the-world conservative and religious extremism. While it showed how far a group would go to hide the outside world, it also gave a weighty explanation. Not a justification, just an explanation.
Signs was a restored faith in the midst of catastrophe story, and The Sixth Sense, while definitely a spiritual exploration that possibly involves Shyamalan’s Indian and Catholic heritage/background, still has two basic themes: “there are spirits living among us and only a few can sense them” plus “ghosts have unfinished business”.
then again, those themes circle back to the question of their philosophical roots, right? So then perhaps at its root, it is all spiritual/metaphysical. hmm…
just my offthecuff opinion 🙂 :: efrain