THE SHAPE OF WATER (2017)
Directed by Guillermo
del Toro
Fox Searchlight, 123
minutes, R (nudity, a few swears)
★★★★★
On paper, there's very little about The Shape of Water that works. Its star is an upright amphibian
(Doug Jones) and the film's Mexican director, Guillermo del Toro, admits that he's
a near copy of the scaly protagonist of The
Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954). Our female lead, Elisa Esposito
(Sally Hawkins) is—for most Americans—a little known British actress who plays
a mute. Improbably for the film's time period, her best friends are Giles, a
closeted gay graphic designer (Richard Jenkins) and an African American woman,
Zelda Fuller (Octavia Spencer), who works the nighttime cleaning shift with
Elisa at the Occam* Aerospace Research Center in Baltimore. (Who, other than
Barry Levinson and John Waters even makes
movies that take place in Baltimore?) The villains are cardboard cutouts, there
are no big "stars," and the script is a crazy quilt patching of Creature from the Black Lagoon, Beauty and
the Beast, ET, and Japanese sci-fi.
Yet, improbably, it does work—brilliantly. The Shape of Water might not be the best
picture of 2017, but it's certainly the most inventive and one of the most
daring. Think a more watery magical realism vibe along the lines of Alejandro
Iñárritu's Birdman (2014). If you
know anything about del Toro, you know that he really likes monsters. He's the director who gave us other creature
features such as Cronos (1993), Hellboy (2004), Blade II (2012), and Pacific
Rim (2013). And if you've seen his previous masterpiece, Pan's Labyrinth (2006), you know that
his ogres serve a greater purpose. Such is the case in The Shape of Water.
The film is a love story straight out of Beauty and the Beast, to which del Toro
gives direct homage. Yet it's also a film about disability, loneliness,
marginalization, trust, social class, society on the cusp of change, and the
Cold War. Did I say the Cold War? Yes. It's the early 1960s and the Russians
have the early lead in the Space Race, so expect some spy intrigue. Much of
that era seems misguided in retrospect, hence del Toro presents Cold War
intrigue in a way that's part Frederick Forsyth** and part Mad Magazine's Spy vs. Spy. The focal point is, of course,
"Amphibian Man" (as the film identifies him), a muscular bipedal
specimen captured by Col. Richard Strickland (Michael Shannon) and spirited
back to the Occam Center for study in the hope he might be the US answer to
Russia's Laika the dog—a sacrificial animal to be launched into space in
advance of humans. The Ruskies also want him, or at least they don't wish the
Americans to possess him. Del Toro dabbles in tropes from 1950s sci-fi: the
military mind vs. the scientific mind, destruction vs. investigation, security
vs. morality, and the age-old question of sentience. Let's even toss in
Biblical rain as a key plot device—something we've seen in dozens of movies.
Yet it is in these things that del Toro works his greatest
magic; he makes improbable things profound. There is, first, terrific acting
from Hawkins, Jones, Spencer, and the much underappreciated Jenkins. Splashes
of humor keep us off-kilter. Above all, though, is the overall feel of the film and sets that bring to
mind the dark hues of films such as Metropolis
(1927) and Sin City (2005); that is, Shape of Water is a noir(ish) dystopian
live action graphic novel pastiche. There are wonderful visual puns for the
keen-eyed, many of which involve textures and hues of green. Elisa and Giles
live above a seedy one-screen movie palace, which foreshadows themes of
isolation, loneliness, difference, and transformations not yet realized. We
know that such theaters—and note how classic movie clips on movie and old-style
TV screens parallel the story arc—are on their way out, but what of those
caught between the decaying and the new?
Giles embodies this. Not only does he remain closeted, he
also cranks out advertising mockups appropriate for the 1950s Golden Age,
images more out of fashion each day. Col. Strickland's home, family, Cadillac,
male privilege, disdain for underlings, and yes-sir patriotism are also on the
cusp of major challenge. Ditto things such as sexual identity, Jim Crow, and
the marginalization of those with physical disabilities. Elisa has mysterious
marks on her neck. She can hear, but she cannot speak, all of which add up to
freak in those days. It is no accident that del Toro's characters are an
intelligent monster, a mute, a homosexual, and a black woman with a blind
husband. Nor is it accidental that a loss of fingers infers symbolic
emasculation.
On the surface, The
Shape of Water is a cartoon-like caper and monster film. Yet from it comes
something stunningly beautiful and transformative, a very different kind of
love that dare not speak its name. You might shed tears at the end, or join
those who spontaneously applauded (as happened the evening I saw it). The Shape of Water is why we go to the
movies: to be taken to heights, depths, and imaginative places we'd not reach
on our own. What does it mean to be different? If we break ugly surfaces, gems
emerge.
Rob Weir
*I assume that the name Occam is deliberate. William of
Occam was a 13th century philosopher best known for "Occam's
razor," a principle that says that when confronted with competing theories
that point to similar conclusions, the one with the fewest assumptions is
likely to be the most sound. In popular thought it's often expressed as the
simplest explanation is the best, though that's not quite what Occam inferred.
**Forsyth penned The Day of the Jackal, thought by many the classic Cold War spy novel.
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