What do you get when you cross a B-movie Creature from the Black Lagoon with a Grimm’s Fairy Tale with a 1960’s Hollywood musical? The answer is: “WOW!”. Director Guillermo del Toro has long been known for his unique macabre visions in film, but with ‘The Shape of Water’, he has produced the best most unique film of his career. As bizarre as the set up sounds, it will garner multiple Oscar nominations this season, if not actual wins. ‘The Shape of Water’ has the feel of a 100 million dollar blockbuster, but del Toro made this for under 19 million. Forewarning that ‘The Shape of Water’ plays out like a fairy tale, but it is R-rated with several scenes causing discomfort to the viewer. Don’t let that scare you away though as this is a film worth exploring the edge of your comfort zone for.
Set in 1960’s Baltimore, mute cleaning lady Elisa (Sally Hawkins), leads a quiet life of longing (for what she doesn’t know) in the Baltimore slums. Her only friends are her co-worker, Zelda (Octavia Spencer), who often interprets her sign language for her, and her elderly artistic neighbor Giles (Richard Jenkins). Her job at a government research facility provides her little excitement until one day the appearance of a team of government scientists arrive transporting a cylinder containing something they only refer to as ‘The Asset’. Leading Security of the project is an intense zealot of a man named Strickland (Michael Shannon adding to his long list of memorable baddies). Elisa and Zelda try to steer clear of the menacing Strickland, especially after hearing the unearthly screams that come from the research chamber, but one day when Strickland emerges from the chamber bloodied and injured, Elisa and Zelda are tasked with the clean-up. It is then that Elisa discovers that ‘The Asset’ is an aquatic man-like creature captured by the Government. For some reason, unbeknownst to her, she is immediately drawn and fascinated by the captured creature. In return, the creature seems to be equally captivated by her quiet presence.
Elisa can’t get the creature out of her mind and as the top secret project’s cleaning duty has been assigned to her, she takes every opportunity she can to make contact with the creature. This proves difficult as security is incredibly high for fear of the Russians infiltrating the facility to secure knowledge of the creature. Strikland’s almost religious fervor for his role, in addition to his sadistic attitude towards the creature deters Elisa, although she does manage to provide the creature a daily routine of leaving hard boiled eggs. Ever evading Strickland’s watchful eye, Elisa looks for any occasion to connect with the creature who constantly occupies her thoughts.
Reading what I have described would hardly want to make anyone rush out and see this movie as it seems cheesy from an era long past. The genius of this film is the execution of Guillermo del toro’s execution. Much like del Toro’s classic ‘Pan’s Labrynth’, he finds beauty in the macabre and forces us to see it as well. Much like we found Grimm’s fairy tales horrifying yet enthralling as children, del Toro is able to recapture that magic at an adult level while still keeping the child like charm and wonderment. I can’t count how many ways this film could have gone wrong, but under del Toro’s direction he weaves a beautiful artistic tapestry of an unlikely love story.
Ever the visual artist, del Toro tells most of his story through images that allows the viewer to be swept in and interpret what they are seeing. One of the most profound scenes involves Elisa going home on the bus and moving her fingers along the beads of water on the window. The camera lingers on her gazing at her tracings and while I couldn’t tell you what it was meant to represent, I felt it was full of meaning. Equally, the musical dance sequence with the creature (yes, you read that correctly), seemed a bizarre choice to fit into the film, but it not only worked seamlessly, it actually enhanced the already incredible film.
There is no way around that this is just a weird film. I won’t even try to deny that. What is also undeniable is that you will walk out of the theatre marveling at its’ artistic accomplishment. I haven’t seen all the Oscar contenders this year and ‘The Shape of Water’ has no real political agenda or social message that would make it an Oscar darling, but I want to go on record that I think this will be a highly buzzed about and controversial film come nomination time. I predict nominations in all the major categories and from what I’ve seen so far this season, merits the Best Picture and Director spot.
I give this film **** 1/2 stars out of five.
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