The Shape of Water 4 out of 4 stars Rated R (for sexual content, graphic nudity, violence and language)
By Kyle Osborne
If you’ve seen Beauty and The Beast or, really, any number of fairy tales, then there are but few surprises in director Guillermo del Toro’s beautiful The Shape of Water.
This is not a bad thing.
As always, it’s not just the story, it’s the telling of the story. Del Toro’s quirky, warm-hearted take on his own screenplay is masterful storytelling. This is one of 2017’s best pictures for me. Sally Hawkins’s performance is second to none this year.
Sally Hawkins and Octavia Spencer in the film THE SHAPE OF WATER. Photo courtesy of Fox Searchlight Pictures. © 2017 Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation All Rights Reserved
Set in the Cold War era of early 60’s Baltimore, the story takes place during the overnight shifts of a super-secret underground government facility. Elisa (Sally Hawkins) is a cleaning lady whose lonely life is only populated with a sympathetic neighbor (Richard Jenkins, amazing as usual) and a talkative co-worker Zelda (Octavia Spencer). Elisa’s loneliness seems even more acute because she is mute who speaks only in sign language. Hawkins, by definition, must convey thousands of thoughts and words with her subtle facial expressions, and what appears to be perfect sign language. It is a performance to soak in like one of her character’s many warm baths.
One night, Elisa and Zelda witness a top secret “asset” brought to the laboratory: it’s a creature, rather humanlike, that has been captured in an Amazon river and brought in for research. A sadistic spook played by Michael Shannon seems more interested in torturing the sympathetic beast, and at the same time, the powers that be want to make sure this potential weapon doesn’t end up in the hands of the Soviets—which adds a subplot to the story that is welcome, if only because it brings the great Michael Stuhlbarg (who also kills it in Call Me By Your Name) Into the film.
Again, it’s that you won’t guess what happens next at various points within the narrative—it’s that you simply won’t care. If you have any sense of romance, you’ll be completely swept up in the love story that develops between Elisa, who secretly befriends the creature and gradually falls in love with him. Yes, he’s definitely a “him.”
Which brings me to another point—one of the many touches that del Toro brings to the character of Elisa is her sexuality. So often in movies, disabled characters are played as virginal, untouched, unwanted. Elisa is a sexual being, which we can see before the creature even enters her life. If she is innocent, her innocence is not an excuse to make her “simple.”
The art direction, production design—whatever they’re calling it now, brings together the pale sci-fi/mid-century blues and greens into something both recognizable and not of this world. All other period details are spot on as well.
For those unfamiliar with del Toro’s work—dude likes his horror and blood and violence. Never gratuitous, but some graphic bits, nonetheless. Those villains pull some next level shit.
But even when populated with its most sinister characters, it’s fun to be within this universe for a couple of hours. You’ll hate the bad guys, you love the good guys, you’ll be frightened and tickled and delighted.
There’s not much more you could ask from any film.