Philadelphia superintendent Cleveland Heep (Paul Giamatti) has been quietly trying to disappear among the burned-out light bulbs and broken appliances of the Cove apartment complex. His mundane routine changes one night when Cleveland finds a mysterious young woman named Story (Bryce Dallas Howard), who has been living in the passageways beneath the building's swimming pool. Cleveland discovers that Story is actually a "narf" - a nymph-like character from a bedtime story being stalked by vicious creatures determined to prevent her from making the treacherous journey from our world back to hers.

Story's unique powers of perception reveal the fates of Cleveland's fellow tenants, whose destinies are tied directly to her own, and they must work together to get her home. But the window of opportunity for Story to return home is closing rapidly, and the tenants are putting their own lives at risk to help her.

Lady in the Water's production history is far more fascinating than the actual film and you can read it in the new book The Man Who Heard Voices by Michael Bamberger. The short version: Walt Disney, the studio who produced Shyamalan's other features such as Signs and The Sixth Sense, decided to take a pass on Lady in the Water, citing that the screenplay wasn't worth producing in the state it was in (Disney might have reconsidered had there been script revisions). Shyamalan thought otherwise, threw a fit and took his project elsewhere (Warner Brothers released this film).

Normally, I wouldn't side with a movie studio. In this case, however, the Mouse House showed brilliant judgment by taking a pass. Nothing in Lady in the Water works, the ridiculous, convoluted screenplay being the nucleus of the problems. The characters are zombie-like clichés (including an uptight jerk of a "literary" whose sole reason of being is to attack those who spoke out against Shyamalan's earlier work) who never question the validity of their mysterious new guest, her origins or the unknown danger that faces them all. They simply buy into the fact that this young woman is a mermaid (forgive me, Narf), accept the mythology mumbo jumbo as the truth and that they need to get her "home" safely. Apparently, this happens all the time in Philadelphia.

M Night Shayamalan's slow-as-snails directing does nothing to help the plot (only a well-lit fire would do that), fails to build any sort of suspense (cue the scary water sprinkler!) or atmosphere (cue Christopher Doyle's murky cinematography), and drags a well-meaning cast (which also includes Jeffrey Wright and Bob Balaban) right to the bottom of the cinematic swimming pool.

The sub-par writing and directing are bad enough, but Shyamalan giving himself a prime acting role is salt on the wound. It is nothing new that the filmmaker does a cameo in each of his films. Hitchcock, Spielberg, Scorsese and Lucas have all done it in several or all of their films. But those directors were wise enough to keep their appearances brief...and quiet.

In Lady in the Water, Shyamalan does the opposite: he plays a struggling writer named Vick, and is told by Story that his unfinished novel will eventually be loved by millions, possess the power to change and influence events and people worldwide and that he will die because of his work. It's enough of a self-absorbed love fest to make one want to scream out "Get a room!" to the movie screen.

Lady in the Water originated as a bedtime story that M Night Shyamalan told to his children, and should have remained that way. What worked as a sleeping aid for his kids unfortunately has the same effect on adults as a motion picture.Lady in the Water is a turd in the toilet.

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