I’m very, very sorry to report this because I admire M. Night Shyamalan‘s crazy courage — the guts to follow through on a way-out-there vision of a film that he believes in 110%, despite the risk of complete failure. There are very few filmmakers like him. But after the word gets out about Lady in the Water, a lot of filmmakers are going to be very, very relieved that they don’t resemble Night at all.
I saw Lady in the Water Wednesday evening. I don’t know when the right time will be to post a review, but I know one thing: Disney chief Nina Jacobson is looking like one very smart, very prophetic executive. There’s an already-famous Jacobson quote in Michael Bamberger‘s book (“The Man Who Heard Voices”), and after coming home from tonight’s screening I read them over again, and I’m really sorry to write this because it makes me feel like Bob Balaban’s “Farber” character to do so, but much of what she said about Shyamalan’s Lady script way back when still holds.
“You said it was funny — I didn’t laugh.,” Jacobson told Night. “Your’e going to let a [film] critic get attacked? They’ll kill you for that. Your part’s too big — you’ll get killed again. You’ve got a writer who wants to change the world but doesn’t, but somebody reads the writer and does? Don’t get it. Lin Lao Choi is going to explain all these rules and all these words? Not buying it. Not getting it. Not working.” I don’t want to get started, but there are many, many more issues of concern besides these.