From the maker of The Sixth Sense, and a slew of other movies that feel more low-budget than big money, M. Night Shyamalan gives us this movie he calls a bedtime story, primarily because it is a story he told to his kids and he actually published as a book with illustrations and such. Anyway, as a movie, this tale gives us a combination of a fantastical world with some cool storytelling elements and some serious contrivances that make you lift an eyebrow and wonder how conceivable some of it really is.
The high points rest in the back story of the tale and the basic elements of the story we are given to deal with. We have the story of these water beings who once communed with man and gave him wisdom and insight into his world. Legend said that man moved away, but recently, the water folk of the blue world are trying to come back into contact with them and give man direction. This is what brings this water lady into contact with the world of this apartment complex, and complex is an apt description. Most everyone you see in this film at one time or another plays some kind of role in the larger fabric of the storyline, and not just another extra.
The main story revolves around the apartment maintenance guy and his relationship with this woman who rescues him from drowning in the swimming pool (which he falls into after he catches her swimming after hours). He learns that she is a narf, or a sea nymph, and that she has to deliver a message and return to her world via The Great Eatlon, a big eagle. Stopping her is a scrunt, which is a creature that blends into the grass, but this scrunt is not supposed to attack per the laws of her world while she awaits the Great Eatlon to pick her up, but he does anyway. Unraveling this mystery takes up the central portion of the film.
The downside to all of this is all the contrivances it took to tell the story. They needed to find some people to help the lady meet the eagle and avoid the scrunt. Well, this means the maintenance guy would have to convince everyone involved that this story is true to the point that they would help. Now, we don't see the convincing, but everyone they want seems to play along. Why? It seems a bit easy not to run into a little conflict there.
The bedtime story element is maintained by (and this runs a bit cliche) the old Chinese mother who doles it out piece by piece to her daughter who gives it to the maintenance guy as the plot requires. Finally, the whole thing is given at one point and the relationship with the daughter is dropped entirely, which is complained about, interestingly. While we need someone to control the legend and give it to us in an interesting and verbal way, it got weird after awhile the different ways that it was be delivered (and he did go for variety here). I finally got to the point that I was tired of seeing the daughter pop with another "my mother told me more of the story...", and just wanted it to all be out and let us move on.
There was one point while watching that I thought something was figured out too easily, and taken a bit too far. This was where the "kii" was located. It was in a secret room underneath the pool. Our maintenance guy swims to the deepest section of the pool, removes a grate, and keeps going down until he finds it (holding his breath forever). I'm thinking, "who the heck would even think of doing this without knowing it's there?" Well, there is a deleted scene that covers this. He still isn't told outright, but it allows him a chance to ask her, and then have it dawn on him without her disagreeing.
A final complaint here is Reggie. We meet Reggie very briefly at one point in the film, and he is one of those myriads we have to try and keep track. Well, pay attention to Reggie because he has a larger role than he is given deveopment for. When that came up, I was thrown off, because his name was called out and I said, "Who?"
So the film is a bit of a mix to me, mostly offering a clever storyline with a wealth of nice characters, but forcing us to accept some things rather easily to make it all work. The central pair is well hashed out, and the supporting circle gets less and less as we move away from the middle, but overall it's not too bad, and if you just accept that everyone believes the legend, it works.
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