Lady Full of Water

Why are people making excuses for Lady in the Water?

Deservingly, it did poorly at the box office this weekend.  And all over the radio today, I have heard people making excuses for why.

"Nobody liked it because it doesn't have a twist ending."

Since when was a twist ending necessary for a movie to be likeable? 

"But people expect a Shyamalan movie to have a twist ending, and when it doesn't, they are mad and don't like the movie."

When did we start thinking so negatively of the movie going public?  People are perfectly capable of liking a Shyamalan movie even if it doesn't have a twist ending.  Case in point: Signs does not end with a surprise, but it is Night's most successful movie behind The Sixth Sense.  And when exactly was he pegged as the guy who's movies must end in surprises?  He has made six movies that opened in theaters, and only half of them have had twists (The Sixth Sense, Unbreakable, and The Village).  His other three - Wide Awake, Signs, and now Lady in the Water - follow the typical Hollywood formula.  Hitchcock made many movies with twist endings, but people didn't expect every one of his movies to end with a surprise, and they didn't get pissed off when a movie didn't end that way.  And people aren't pissed at Lady in the Water because it didn't end that way, either.

"Yeah, but the previews billed it as something different from what it is, so when audiences saw the real movie, they didn't like it."

Yes, that's entirely true.  The previews billed it as a good movie, and it wasn't.  People aren't so brain dead that they can't enjoy a good movie even if they were expecting something different.  Just take a look at The Break Up earning 9 figures even though it wasn't the bubbly romantic comedy the previews made it out to be.  If a movie is good, people will still like it.  The reason people aren't liking Lady in the Water is because it isn't a good movie.

The problem is that characters do things that don't make sense, and things happen that really shouldn't.  The worst excuse for this I've heard is, "Well, it's supposed to be a fairytale, and fairytales don't make sense."

It's all well and good for there not to be deep character development in Goldielocks and the Three Bears, but when a director is given $60 million to make a summer blockbuster, it better make sense.  It better have resonance.

The Disney executives called a meeting with Night long before the movie went into production.  They told him that the mythology is off, the characters are obnoxious, the story shouldn't be explained via an Asian women translating from an Asian language, the main character shouldn't have a stutter, and Night shouldn't play the second biggest male role.

He totally ignored them and took his movie to another studio to make it exactly the way he wanted it.

And the result?  The mythology is off, the characters are obnoxious, the story shouldn't have been explained via an Asian women translating from an Asian language, the main character shouldn't have had a stutter, and Night shouldn't have played the second biggest male role.

I love M. Night Shyamalan.  I have spent the day with him.  I have pictures with him.  I have signed copies of all of his movies.  I love him.  I think he's a great guy.  I love his films, too.  From Wide Away to The Village, I have loved them all.  But Lady in the Water is a bad movie.  It didn't do well at the box office because it is a bad movie. 

Stop making excuses.