'Lady In The Water' (PG-13) (out of four popcorns)

In the world of M. Night Shyamalan, children see dead people, security guards are superheroes and what you see isn't necessarily what you get.

Now, Shyamalan has taken a bedtime story he told his daughters over the course of several weeks and woven an original fable. However, the fable is so intricate that it often threatens to bury "Lady in the Water" with its details.

Shyamalan began his imaginary tale by asking his daughters, "Do you know that someone lives under our pool?" As he spun his tale, Shyamalan added characters and rules and history until The Blue World pulsed with life and came to embody many of the themes the director infused into his movies.

Bryce Dallas Howard ("The Village") brings Shyamalan's tale to life as Story, an ethereal water nymph-like creature known as a Narf. To get back home to The Blue World, Story must fulfill her destiny by fulfilling the destiny of a specific human. But that isn't as easy as it might seem. You see, she doesn't know the identity of the human, just that he is a writer who lives at The Cove, an apartment complex where she is hiding in an alcove under the pool. Also hindering her efforts is the evil Scrunt, a wolf-like creature that appears to be made of grass so it can disappear in plain sight until it is ready to pounce on the unsuspecting Narf.

One night, Cleveland Heap (Paul Giammati), a nondescript loner who is The Cove's maintenance man, discovers Story. Against his better judgment and nature, Cleveland starts to care for this waif and is unable to resist wanting to help her. As he covertly questions the tenants, looking for the writer Story is destined to help, they both realize that it is not just the writer who will be changed, but also Cleveland and a number of their neighbors who have very specific roles to play in this sacred link between The Blue World and the human world.

That is just a very skeletal description of the story "Lady in the Water" is trying to tell. There is much more to the fable and the real world that envelopes it, but catching all the nuances is difficult. The film is fascinating, magical and frustrating. You know there is a lot more to the story below the surface of what is shown on the screen, but time restrictions prevent a full view.

It is nice to use your imagination, but when key motivations are left out, it is harder to emotionally invest in Story's quest. It is never really clear why Story is away from the Blue World in the first place, why she wants to return and what would happen to her if her time window to return shuts down.

Despite these nagging questions, I still found myself drawn into Story's plight and how her presence releases the real destinies of the people around her, freeing them to be who they were meant to be without fear.

I also loved going along for the ride as Cleveland learned the legend of the Narfs in bits and pieces through a feisty young Korean woman and her suspicious non-English-speaking mother. As those story fragments fit together, we are able to track down which residents of the Cove will play an important role in getting Story home.

One thing Shyamalan excels at is casting, and "Lady in the Water" is no exception. It was fortunate thing when his original lady dropped out of "The Village," and Howard took over because that put the actress in line for the plum part of Story. I can't imagine anybody else playing it. Howard's pale, delicate features and otherworldly calm create a canvas of innocence that is essential for a mythical creature.

Giammati, meanwhile, has some remarkable moments of humor, joy, pain and awkwardness. (although the stutter he invents for the role seems awkward, at best.)

The rest of the cast may play small roles, but each one is a full-blown human with quirks drawn with broad strokes, such as the man who is exercising only one side of his body, the crossword puzzle enthusiast whose son reads messages in cereal boxes and the stoner smokers in one apartment. Shyamalan also has a much larger role that he usually plays in his movies. A few of the characters, though, get very little screen time and it looks like they might have shot a lot more scenes that didn't make the final cut.

Everybody seems to want Shyamalan to keep making the "Sixth Sense" over and over. Well, get over it. It's just not going to happen with a director who is evolving and spreading his wings.

If you just allow yourself to be swept away by Shyamalan's flights of fancy in "Lady in the Water," you might be rewarded with an enchanting and unique movie experience.