I just love M. Night Shyamalan. Not him personally, mind you. All that secrecy! The poorly acted cameos! That narcissistic commercial for American Express! But his creative output... the plot twists, the damaged characters, the unexpected humor, the seemingly dichotomous affection for heart-breaking romance and pants-soiling terror. With the exception of Unbreakable, which stopped just where it should have taken off, I'll watch his films over and over again. There's something tender in them all, a belief in the capability of love to overcome all things, that makes it worth spending another night wondering if those noises on the roof are the aliens trying to break in.
Mr. Shyamalan has made me able to watch actors I normally avoid at the multiplex. What did he do with Bruce Willis' sneer? How did he make Mel Gibson come across as humble? What inspired him to create such a perfect ending for Adrian Brody, and can we convince him to carry it off in real life?
Then there's the way he writes children: smart, but not wiseasses. Endearing, but not cloying. Real people, not little sitcom character quasi-adults. There's also the way he writes Joaquin Phoenix (someone I definitely WOULD go see at the multiplex,) making excellent use of that brooding persona but instilling a nice goofiness on the characters as well. And finally, there's the sheer perfection of Bryce Dallas Howard, she who gives the term "celebrity offspring" a good name.
So I'm a little excited about Lady in the Water, opening this summer. Intriguing mysticism? Check. B.D.H.? Check. Leading man I normally wouldn't go see at the multiplex? Dammit, check. Okay, Night. I'm willing to cut you a little slack on this one, because you got me to actually kind of like Bruce Willis, and temporarily put aside my antipathy for Mel Gibson and his wacko agenda, but you're really pushing my ability to forgive here. I mean, PAUL GIAMATTI? Come on.
Now, I acknowledge a certain... not prejudice... healthy dislike for Mr. Giamatti. But in my defense, he keeps providing me with justification. Why, on the very subject of this movie, he gave the following quote to Entertainment Weekly about his costar. "It was interesting. She didn't have a whole lot of clothes on in this movie, so that was a little awkward at times, having just worked with her father." (EW, 01/27/2006)
Why, Mr. Giamatti! What a classy and flattering thing to say about your fellow thespian. I'm sure you worked very hard to put her at her ease and pretend you didn't notice that she was less-thoroughly clad than daily life might otherwise dictate. You didn't give a national magazine a quote about her near-nudity and her father in the same sentence. Thank heavens she wasn't playing a randomly schizo character, because then you'd really have let her have it.
But I'll stop now. I will. Because I trust the Shyamalan magic, and what he did before, he can most surely do again.
But would it have killed him to cast Joaquin Phoenix instead?
