Twelve years ago, I wrote a short entry about this movie, saying that it fascinated me. I never understood exactly why. I’ll try to explain it in this new blog post.
It’s an American film starring Paul Giamatti and Bryce Dallas Howard, with music by James Newton Howard. It was written and directed by M. Night Shyamalan, known for The Sixth Sense, Unbreakable, and The Village, among other award-winning and well-known films. However, Lady is not one of them. As a financial disappointment, it received negative reviews from critics for various reasons. One critique surprised me: some considered it a comedy rather than a drama. I recently found an interview with Shyamalan on the movie’s 10th anniversary. When asked the obvious question, he said not only that he loves it, but also that if his house were burning down and he had to grab a few films, Lady would be one of them.
In one of the story’s many moving moments, Mr. Leeds, a strange man who spends most of his days in front of a TV watching news about a world seemingly falling apart, meets the movie’s likely main character, Cleveland Heep. He asks him a question that many would consider nonsensical, or even overly philosophical or theological, if it weren’t for the fact that Heep had lost his wife and daughters to a murderer in his own home. Once a doctor, Heep now works as a janitor in a Philadelphia apartment complex, living a life devoid of meaning. “Does man deserve to be saved?” Leeds asks. Heep’s answer surprises him: “Yes,” replies the building’s custodian, for whom the word salvation carries profound weight.
Cleveland’s unexpected journey feels like an age-old tale, one told time and again, featuring characters with pivotal roles they themselves do not recognize. The janitor knows their presence but cannot identify them, so he turns to an “expert”: Mr. Farber, a film critic who believes all stories are dull because “there is no originality left in the world.” His guidance seems to help Cleveland assign roles to those around him, making it almost too obvious. One such role is the “symbolist”, the person who knows what to do in times of crisis. Farber claims this must be someone adept at riddles and complex questions. Later, however, they realize that the symbolist is simply someone who finds meaning in the simplest, most everyday events.
The first time I encountered this film, I read the synopsis: a harebrained story that almost disuades me from watching: the janitor of a Philadelphia apartment building discovers a narf or nymph in the swimming pool. This mysterious being is on a mission to find someone in the human world, an encounter that somehow awakens this man and allows him to recognize an important calling: to write a book that will become the seed for great social change. In truth, no one imagines that their own life has a clear, extraordinary purpose, not even Story herself, who learns that her vocation involves more than merely delivering a message. The film suggests that there was once a close relationship between humans and those who dwell in the water. Yet humanity, the story says, does not listen well; it is distracted by trivialities and corrupted. From the very beginning, however, the movie makes it clear that these mysterious beings try again and again to reach us. Humanity is not alone, despite its faults, errors, and darkness.
The movie ends with this dedication:
To my daughters, I’ll tell you this story one more time.
But then go to bed.
I’m sure his daughters must have asked him to tell this unpredictable story over and over again. Cleveland experienced an encounter that changed his life. He was lost, but he will never forget meeting Story; and undoubtedly many will not believe it, yet some will. I cannot help but relate this narrative to others: what would film critics like Mr. Farber make of a common man who, condemned to the same death as the most insignificant members of society, not only claimed to be humanity’s salvation but also God incarnate, the Mystery made flesh? This story, however unbelievable, changed the course of world history, and also changed my own history:
John and Andrew, and those twelve, Simon and the others, told their wives; and some of those wives went with them… They said it even to other friends. The friends told other friends, and these in turn told others again. Thus the first century passed, and these friends invaded the second century with their faith; at the same time they were invading the world geographically. They hit Spain at the end of the first century, and India during the second century. Then those of the second century told others who lived after them, and these told others after them, like a great flow that grew wider and wider, like a river fuller and fuller, and they ended up telling my mother. Yes, my own mother! And my mother told me when I was little, and I say: “Master, I don’t understand what you say either, but if we go away from you, where shall we go? You alone have words that correspond to our hearts.”
(Luigi Giussani)