YMMV / Lady in the Water

• Audience-Alienating Era: It was Shyamalan's first major film to bomb at the box office, yet again attracting even more flak for its Twist Ending.
• Awesome Music: James Newton Howard contributed a score that many people consider to be one of his best.
• Creator's Pet: Vick, to a T; heck, he’s even played by M. Night Shyamalan himself!
• Designated Villain: Farber. We’re supposed to dislike him because, as another character asks, "What kind of person would be arrogant enough to presume the intention of another human being?" He didn’t, though. When Cleveland asked him whom he should seek to fill the various roles in Story’s guard, he expressed it as a hypothetical question and Farber only gave qualities he’d expect each person to have. Cleveland nominated each tenant to a given role himself, and was ultimately the one who implemented the advice he was given incorrectly. It's even more jarring once they discover the actual people who fill the roles, as they all have the traits Farber said they were likely to have, meaning that he was right all along.
• Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • The critic, whom many viewers consider the only likable character in the whole movie. It’s quite ironic, given the effort expended to make him an unlikable jerk.
  • Anna Ran, Vick’s cheerful, funny sister who warms to Story right away.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • At the time it may have just been a case of Shyamalan feeding his own ego, but Vick’s Cookbook is supposed to inspire a Midwesterner with prodigious oratorical gifts to become President of the United States. The film was released to U.S. theaters on July 21, 2006. Less than three years later, a then little-known Illinoisan, Barack Obama, was elected to the presidency.
  • Film Threat critic Pete Vonder Haar suggested that if Shyamalan was using his children as the inspiration for the story,^note The plot is based on bedtime stories he made up for his daughters. he should start making movies for Nickelodeon. Surely enough, four years after Lady in the Water, Shyamalan went on to make The Last Airbender, based on the Nick cartoon. Can also count as Harsher in Hindsight, seeing as that film was even more critically panned.
• Moe: Obviously Story, a shy, innocent outsider who bonds with one of our heroes in the film.
• Narm:
  • Did somebody say “NARF!”? The names for the other mystical creatures as well, but especially the Scrunt, which becomes especially damaging as it's the movie's Big Bad.
  • While it's clear that Story was screaming because of the Scrunt, for whatever reason, she's pointing somewhere when she's screaming, with the next shot clarifying that it was the pool she came out of. However, it really looks like she's more afraid of the pool than the monster stalking her.
    • For whatever reason, Cleveland carries her like a baby in this scene. He also starts screaming, even though he has no way of knowing what's actually going on, which makes it look like he's only screaming because Story is screaming.
  • The kid who predicts the future by interpreting cereal boxes. Though it wasn't much better before that point, when they were reading the future via his dad's crossword puzzles.
  • The first two lines of the DVD's back-cover summary: "Lullaby. And good fright." Presented entirely straight as if it's genuinely intimidating.
• Never Live It Down: Shyamalan casting himself as the Messianic Archetype. So much so that he earned two awards for Worst Director and Worst Supporting Actor at the 27th Golden Raspberry Awards.
• Nightmare Fuel: The film's myriad flaws aside, the Scrunt is pretty scary-looking.
• The Scrappy: Vick. Unlike most examples it's not because he's annoying or unlikable. The real reason he's hated is because he's essentially destined to become the messiah of writers, and the film's writer/director conveniently plays him. Naturally, many viewers didn't care for Shyamalan making a character who exists just to brag about how amazing his writing is. The fact that this movie was widely panned only makes the ego trip even worse for most. Case in point, he was even nominated for and won in the Worst Supporting Actor category at the 27th Golden Raspberry Awards as a result.
• So Bad, It's Good: Among all Shyamalan's flicks, you probably won't find an example that is sillier and higher up its own rear end than this one, starting with Shyamalan's hilariously pretentious self-casting as a writer who will go on to inspire the whole of humanity. Thanks to that, it is also one of his funniest films for critics to rip apart (which is only fair, since a huge grass wolf monster literally rips apart the resident critic character).
• Took the Bad Film Seriously: Shyamalan, obviously, but also Paul Giamatti, who gives a much more convincing (nominal) lead performance than the plot in which his character finds himself.
• Unintentionally Sympathetic: Farber. The film goes into great lengths to make him unlikable, but his Designated Villain position and the fact he appears to be the Only Sane Man still makes him quite popular with audiences. The way the Scrunt kills him, reciting how things would be working in a conventional movie as if his vaunted cinematic knowledge might somehow save him, makes the way the movie treats him seem even pettier.

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