M. Night Shyamalan dazzles anew with 'Lady in the Water'

In an era when cinematic imagination often seems stalled, writer-director M. Night Shyamalan ("The Sixth Sense," "Unbreakable," "Signs," "The Village") consistently brings original, inspired stories to the big screen, captivating audiences with deft storytelling that bears his signature blend of suspense, drama, humor and heartfelt emotion.

Now, he dazzles audiences once again with the thrilling supernatural fantasy, "Lady in the Water" starring Paul Giamatti ("Sideways," "Cinderella Man") and Bryce Dallas Howard ("The Village").

"My movies are an expression of who I am and where I am emotionally," Shyamalan says. "Each film has its questions that I'm wrestling with at that time. I believe in being honest with the audience, so I try to talk honestly about the things I'm dealing with in the context of a fictional story that everyone can enjoy."

Perhaps his most original and daring film yet, "Lady in the Water" began as an impromptu bedtime story Shyamalan invented for his two young daughters. "The way I tell stories to my kids is very freeform - whatever pops into my head and comes out of my mouth," he says of their nightly ritual.

"Do you know that someone lives under our pool?" is what popped out of Shyamalan's head on that particular night, sparking a story that played out for days and weeks on end.

"It developed into this kind of odyssey," he recalls. "There was something at the heart of this story that made me want to tell it every night, and to keep it going. After the story finally ended, my daughters and I kept talking about it and what happened to the characters. It resonated with us in an unusual fashion."

"Lady in the Water" tells the legend of Story (Howard), a mesmerizing nymph-like young woman, and Cleveland (Giamatti), the broken-spirited building superintendent who discovers that she is actually a Narf - a character from an ancient and epic bedtime story - who has journeyed to the human world to fulfill a vital and sacred purpose. Temporarily trapped between realms, her mission and maybe even her fragile existence in jeopardy, she has taken refuge in Cleveland's building, living in the cool dark passageways beneath the swimming pool.

Story's quest to return to her world is fraught with danger, inhibited by ferocious creatures whose attempts to stop her carry catastrophic consequences for the human realm. As Cleveland and his fellow tenants work together to unravel the mystery of her destiny, they discover that they too are fated to be characters in this extraordinary story unfolding in the real world around them.

With "Lady in the Water," Shyamalan has created a brand new mythology in the tradition of "The Princess Bride," "E.T." and "The Wizard of Oz" that encourages us to have faith in something greater than ourselves; to believe in a world of possibilities beyond those we can see or fully comprehend.

"The problem with us when we grow up is that we forget that anything is possible," Shyamalan believes. "So the things that used to be possible had to become stories. And then we became so cynical that these stories had to become children's stories. So things that were once true are now disguised as children's stories."

"Lady in the Water" represents the latest chapter in Shyamalan's journey as a storyteller, his seventh film in a canon of distinctive stories united by a common purpose: to inspire and entertain. "When people come out of this movie," he says, "I hope they feel a sense of hope for themselves and for others; hope that everybody finds their purpose and we'll all be able to do what we're supposed to do on this planet."- Warner Bros.