Lady in the what?

Well obviously I’m off my game, because I let eight whole days go by without commenting on one of the most perplexing trailers I’ve ever seen in my life, which I stumbled across while browsing the Apple trailers site .

You may recall several months ago, when I posted about M. Night Shyamalan’s new film, Lady in the Water, which according to Variety “concerns a building super who finds a sea nymph in his apartment building's pool.”

Cut to eight months later, the teaser is out! I’m somewhat speechless after watching it, in particular because of the emphatically large titles which say:

A BEDTIME STORY WRITTEN AND DIRECTED BY M. NIGHT SHYAMALAN

I mean it’s ridiculous, and a little pretentious to boot.

The teaser is cut to this melodramatic sappy, soppy, string filled music, and the images are mostly of Giamatti’s character, Cleveland Heap, walking around and doing his job in a sad and somber fashion. I can’t help but scratch my head wondering if I am supposed to be scared, touched, or laughing out loud.

Paul Giamatti is a terrific actor and I really enjoy the work that he’s done, but this doesn’t seem like a typical choice for him. Sure it’s by a reputable studio, and its directed by a successful and talented guy, but what interest could this plot possibly hold for….anyone?

Further research on the official website reveals the following information about the story:

In Lady in the Water, a story originally conceived by Shyamalan for his children, a modest building manager named Cleveland Heep rescues a mysterious young woman from danger and discovers she is actually a narf, a character from a bedtime story who is trying to make the treacherous journey from our world back to hers. Cleveland and his fellow tenants start to realize that they are also characters in this bedtime story. As Cleveland falls deeper and deeper in love with this woman, he works together with the tenants to protect his fragile new friend from the deadly creatures that reside in this fable and are determined to prevent her from returning home.

I was sort of hoping it’d turn out to be a horrifying creature who posseses his body and makes him kill the innocent children that frolic in the pool. Or something like that. Overall it stinks of a love story, and I can hear the audiences guffawing already as Giamatti holds this sickly green but beautiful woman in his arms, weeping as she tells him she must sacrifice their love to save her people at the bottom of the pool.

The exterior shot of the camera in the pool where we see Giamatti in his cottage and we see something move in the water, but we don’t see just what it is, is admittedly disturbing. But other than that I really don’t know how this will play out. Why the bedtime story element? Will this be Splash all over again? M. Night, what’s happened? The idea of the characters becoming aware that they are but players in a story that is already written could be kind of interesting, but I think if not executed properly could become more of a source of confusion than anything else.

Still, no matter what M. Night does, I always respect his work. I haven’t disliked any of his films to date, though I’ve enjoyed some much more than others. All in all, I say this, it’s still a heck of a strange marketing campaign.