The Shape of Water
Directed by: Guillermo del Toro
Written by: Guillermo del Toro & Vanessa Taylor
Starring: Sally Hawkins, Doug Jones, Michael Shannon, Richard Jenkins, Octavia Spencer, Michael Stuhlbarg, David Hewlett, Nick Searcy, Nigel Bennett, Lauren Lee Smith, Morgan Kelly
Adventure/Drama/Fantasy - 123 min Reviewed by Charlie Juhl on 5 Dec 2017
Written by: Guillermo del Toro & Vanessa Taylor
Starring: Sally Hawkins, Doug Jones, Michael Shannon, Richard Jenkins, Octavia Spencer, Michael Stuhlbarg, David Hewlett, Nick Searcy, Nigel Bennett, Lauren Lee Smith, Morgan Kelly
Adventure/Drama/Fantasy - 123 min Reviewed by Charlie Juhl on 5 Dec 2017
Guillermo del Toro is a cinematic artist who transcends recognizable genres by ignoring them altogether. His most beloved movie, Pan’s Labyrinth (2006), is an anti-fascist adult fairy tale set during the Spanish Civil War. The Devil’s Backbone (2001), which first separated del Toro from his peers, is a gothic ghost story set in a Spanish orphanage in 1939. What reads strange on paper has a powerful way of working on screen. The Shape of Water is no different; it returns to adult fairy tale viewed through a Cold War lens where a mute cleaning woman falls in love with an amphibian man in a secret government facility. It is a monster movie full of romantic drama and oh, there is a musical interlude. Guillermo del Toro can do what he wants. His films are so effective and so moving, how can anyone try and pigeonhole his creations with labels as trivial as genre?
Beneath all of the layers combining to form a magnificent whole, The Shape of Water is a Beauty and the Beast story at its core, but Eliza (Sally Hawkins, Godzilla) is no Disney princess. She is a real person, a real woman. Del Toro gives her character not a titillating seductive manner, but a natural sexuality usually withheld from the comely debutante in stories like this. She is not deaf, just mute. Hawkins is far more expressive as Eliza using her hands to communicate than if she had lines and lines of dialogue. Her eyes and body accomplish the acting in a way far more profound and more affecting than if she were merely saying words. It is an astonishing performance.
Beneath all of the layers combining to form a magnificent whole, The Shape of Water is a Beauty and the Beast story at its core, but Eliza (Sally Hawkins, Godzilla) is no Disney princess. She is a real person, a real woman. Del Toro gives her character not a titillating seductive manner, but a natural sexuality usually withheld from the comely debutante in stories like this. She is not deaf, just mute. Hawkins is far more expressive as Eliza using her hands to communicate than if she had lines and lines of dialogue. Her eyes and body accomplish the acting in a way far more profound and more affecting than if she were merely saying words. It is an astonishing performance.
The creature, monster, mer-man, or even elemental God depending on how characters see him is played by Doug Jones (Crimson Peak); his sixth time working for del Toro. There are hardly any computer graphics involved in Jones’s performance; it is 99% man in a costume and far more authentic than any digital creation. Harking back to old school filmmaking techniques, the creature is a combination of suit and makeup; even his gills are mechanical. Post-production software only helped on the blinking. This is a monster from the 1940s or ‘50s and certainly does not look like a being a pretty young girl is supposed to fall in love with. He represents otherness and the outcasts. Del Toro has given us creepy and scary monsters before, but now we may have a sexy monster on our hands. Monster and creature are words the characters employ in their 1962-tinted language, but he is more man than not. To harness our empathy, Doug Jones becomes graceful, powerful, and vulnerable all in the same scene.
When the evil head of security, Richard Strickland (Michael Shannon, Nocturnal Animals), shocks the creature with a cattle prod, chains him up, and tortures him, you will despise his inhuman tactics. We live in a time where our political leaders are urging us to demonize the ‘other’, but perhaps we should understand each other first. Too clever for The Shape of Water to really be just a fairy tale, it’s quite political as well. Here is this Mexican director saying you should love your neighbor and presents a story urging all creatures to come together in a time when people are trying to keep us apart telling us we’re different. Even though the setting is 1962, it is an easy understudy for 2017. When folks talk about making America great again, they’re dreaming about 1962. There was Camelot, the space race, and futuristic tail fins on cars. JFK got shot and it was downhill from there right into Vietnam and polarization.
Del Toro made a fairy tale for troubled times. In an atmosphere permeated by fear and distrust, we will let our guards down a bit if the story in front of us starts out with an understood, “Once upon a time in 1962…” Then it becomes a fable and the audience will accept it. Check out that opening shot by the way. It is a long take slowly entering Eliza’s apartment, and it’s all underwater. Remember the old school filmmaking techniques? This is called dry for wet. Del Toro hooked all the furniture and Sally Hawkins up to wires. He blasted fans on her to simulate water and added all the bubbles digitally. It’s one of the most memorable shots of the year.
While The Shape of Water is a love story, there is also a real love for cinema here. Del Toro color-coded the film. Everything is green and teal. Strickland’s candy, his brand new Cadillac, the key lime pie, and the liquid hand soap in the bathroom are all strikingly green and teal. Red pops up so infrequently it is jarring to see it. Other than blood, we see red when Eliza sees the front doors of the movie theater she lives above and the theater seats are all red. There is a discussion of how hard it must have been for Bojangles and Shirley Temple to tap dance up and down stairs. Oh yes, Del Toro wants you to dream of decades gone by.
Del Toro shows us his interpretation of love for cinema, love for the other, and how to get on in the world today. To talk about absolute good and evil, we need to invent angels and demons, poetry and fable, not just science. Americans were obsessed with he future in 1962 but in comes comes this creature who represents the ultimate past; most cannot see it for the divine and beautiful thing it is. The same goes for Eliza. Out of all of these men hurrying around in lab coats with clipboards pondering how to keep one step ahead of the Soviets, who will notice the mute cleaning girl? It looks like del Toro discovered two beings tailor-made for one another.
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