M Night Shyamalan names his most misunderstood movie: “It’s jazz in its own way”
M Night Shyamalan has had quite a journey in the movie business over the past three decades.
He’s gone from being a wunderkind director labelled the next Spielberg to a ridiculed spent force before finally reinventing himself as a master of the mid-budget original thriller—something that is all too rare today. He’s had more highs and lows than most directors, but through it all, he’s refused to lose confidence in his vision as a creator. Naturally, when his uncompromising vision led to a few films that could charitably be described as misfires, he came in for a ton of criticism. However, he is adamant one of his most mocked films is actually the most misunderstood movie in his catalogue.
Before he exploded into the public consciousness with The Sixth Sense in 1999, Shyamalan directed two films largely forgotten by time. 1992’s indie drama Praying with Anger and 1998’s dramedy Wide Awake helped him gain a foothold in the industry, but given what his career became, they now seem like a different filmmaker made them. Fascinatingly, in 2023, Shyamalan told The Hollywood Reporter that he went through his own personal hell while making Wide Awake at Miramax.
After it ended, he admitted, “I felt like my career was over.”
Thankfully, Shyamalan looked at the movie posters on his wall—Jaws, Alien, The Exorcist, Poltergeist—and decided to write a script in their vein. The result was The Sixth Sense, which became a genuine cultural phenomenon in 1999. While in the editing room for that movie, though, he was already writing Unbreakable. By the year 2000, Shyamalan had executed a complete 180 in his career.
In this period, the hype around Shyamalan was loud and inescapable, with Newsweek proclaiming the young filmmaker to be “the next Spielberg”. He added fuel to that fire with 2002’s Signs, but then things took a left turn with 2004’s The Village, which wasn’t anywhere near as well-received by audiences or critics. Suddenly, there was a chink in the Shyamalan armour, and the overwhelming praise attached to his name began to morph into derision.
If The Village was the first sign of weakness in Shyamalan’s defences, though, then 2006’s Lady in the Water saw those defences collapse like a pack of cards. This bizarre psychological thriller/modern-day fairy tale based on a bedtime story Shyamalan would tell his daughters was utterly lambasted by bemused critics, and its box office totals were barely a fraction of his previous movies. Worst of all, Shyamalan cast himself in the movie as a writer whose visionary works can change the world, a self-indulgence few could abide.
In the THR interview, Shyamalan confessed that the vitriolic reaction to Lady in the Water was disappointing. Still, he defended the idea that he somehow changed his style in the film and instead claimed that it just showed new colours of his creative personality to the world. He reasoned, “I love being wicked and getting a rise out of you. Being goofy is a part of who I am, as is being earnest. So, Lady in the Water was very close to who I am as a person.”
Indeed, when asked to name his most misunderstood film, Shyamalan said, “There’s a plethora I could pick from, but probably Lady in the Water. It’s its own tone, and it’s jazz in its own way.”
To his credit, even if he wouldn’t admit to the movie being an example of hubris getting the best of him, Shyamalan did confess he made one huge mistake when writing and directing it. Unlike when he worked on his previous films, the director purposely stopped concerning himself with thoughts like, “How will they sell the movie?”
In the end, he left the Warner Brothers marketing team with an almost impossible task because Lady in the Water resolutely refused to conform to any one genre. This then left the film in an awkward position, as it was almost destined to confuse audiences. The experience made him realise, “The marketers are the first people to tell your story. They begin the story. That’s part of the art form. So you have to start thinking about that as you’re making the movie.”
Ultimately, though, Lady in the Water still holds a very special place in Shyamalan’s heart – and he even claims that it has found its devoted audience over the years. He smiled, “It was the least seen of all my movies, but to this day, when people come up to me about that movie, they speak with religion about it.”
