The Shape of Water

Filmmaker Guillermo del Toro has a fascinating career that began professionally in 1992 with his first feature film, Cronos, a Mexican independent horror drama that was an early showcase for his unique talent in visual storytelling.  It was also nominated for the Best Foreign Language Film at that year’s Academy Awards. Since then he has had numerous films decorated at the Oscars but until 2017 he had never been nominated for the biggest award, the Best Picture Oscar. Then came The Shape of Water, a throwback to 50’s creature features mashed together with one of the most unconventional romances of all time. It’s a love story as only Guillermo del Toro could bring to life. 

The year is 1962 and Elisa Esposito (Sally Hawkins), a mute woman who was abandoned as an infant with her vocal cords cut, works as a custodian at a secret government laboratory in Baltimore. Her only friends are her closeted gay next-door neighbor Giles (Richard Jenkins) and her coworker Zelda (Octavia Spencer). One day a newcomer to the facility, Colonel Richard Strickland (Michael Shannon), arrives with a mysterious creature he’s captured from a South American river. He’s brought it to the Baltimore facility to study and, eventually, vivisect it as a means to get a leg up on the Soviets in the Space Race. One day the creature attacks him, severing two of his fingers. Elisa and Zelda are sent to clean up the blood and Elisa gets her first real look at the creature which turns out to be humanoid. She feels an instant connection with the creature and is horrified when she sees how it is being tortured. 

The Russians are also interested in the creature and have a spy working in the facility, Dr. Robert Hoffstetler/Dimitri Mosenkov (Michael Stuhlbarg). Hoffstetler tries unsuccessfully to persuade Strickland not to vivisect the creature while simultaneously being ordered by his Soviet handlers to kill it before the Americans can learn too much from it. He oversees Elisa communicating through sign language with the creature and deduces its intelligence as well as her strong connection with it. When Elisa breaks the creature out, Hoffstetler bails her out when it all turns south. Strickland is being pressured by his boss to get the creature back at all costs but figuring out who smuggled it out proves difficult, that is until he narrows in on the spy whose own people have turned on him over the escape.

This is a movie about damaged people. It’s a theme that appears in more than one of del Toro’s films although never as prominently a part of the story as it is here. Elisa is the epitome of that with her three angry looking scars on her neck, a wound inflicted on her in infancy. She is presented as entirely mute but we see in the final reel that that is not completely accurate. She can speak but only in a quiet hoarse whisper. It’s no accident that those scars happen to resemble gills, too. Sally Hawkins is a bold choice for this role and she does a great job conveying without words what her character is thinking and feeling. It’s a good representation of a strong woman with a disability. The film does get bogged down in a mixed message that can be interpreted as a person with a disability being unable to find respect and love from anyone except for a monster. The final resolution can be seen as “if a person doesn’t fit in to societal norms, they should just leave.” This message is somewhat undermined by the friendship and respect Elisa shares with Giles who, in 1960’s America, cannot be open about his real self lest he risk persecution. Like Elisa, he too is a damaged individual, handicapped by a society that isn’t tolerant of his sexuality. These two complement each other well and, when she needs his support, as dangerous and crazy as her plan is, he stands by her, even risking his own safety.

Zelda fits into this same mold, too, as a black woman during the 60’s. Hers is a world where women, especially women of color, are often overlooked and under-seen. When Strickland first meets her and Elisa it is in the most awkward of situations, in the mens room. He strides in while the two girls are cleaning, unfazed by their presence as he relieves himself openly. He makes a statement about man being in the image of God, asking the two if God looks like people like us…well more like himself than like some, a subtle jab at both her being a woman and being black. All the black workers have a little hiding spot where the cameras cannot see them where they can sneak cigarettes. This serves the themes of the film while also setting up a plot point for later.

Strickland sees himself as Godlike, superior to his underlings and insulted by the very existence of the creature. This feeds into his hatred as he tortures it without any sense of guilt for his actions. Only when the creature finally gets him back does he respect it. There is a degree of subtleness to the character of Strickland as written but Michael Shannon buries it in a portrayal that is just a rinse-and-repeat from his General Zod in Man of Steel. Shannon seems to feel that all he needs to do is glare menacingly all the time and that makes him a great villain. There’s more to being a great antagonist than looking menacing. Alan Rickman made a career out of being a menacing presence that was unique every single time. Shannon may have range but it’s not on display here. Any nuance is in the screenplay and not in the performance. He is the worst kind of patriot, one that is angry and bitter at all times, even when at home with his wife and kids. He does everything, even having sex, with that angry glare on his face like a coiled snake ready to strike.

The last main character introduced is the creature itself. Doug Jones had worked with del Toro before in Hellboy and its sequel as the Pale Man and was accomplished in playing all sorts of aliens and creatures in part because of his extremely thin figure and ability to express through heavy makeup. Guillermo chose to avoid the trappings of an all CGI creature and instead used practical makeup to bring the creature to life. This was the right choice and it makes the interactions with other actors, especially Sally Hawkins, all the more engrossing. Doug brings a humanity to the portrayal that many of the actual human characters do not have. Sally plays off this well. She is not a typical looking actress but is so endearing here that, as strange as this subject is, she sells it completely. She studied many of the great silent actors to learn how to get emotions and thoughts across non-verbally. Doug Jones, likewise, has no dialogue and must pantomime or use sign language, taught to him by Elisa, to communicate. These two are lonely souls and their romance develops in ways no other romantic film has. Physical appearance is irrelevant to them; it’s what’s inside that matters.

The Shape of Water is a strong film with relevant themes that mix together to create an emotional payout that belies the odd concept. Much like John Carpenter’s Star Man this is a film about two worlds finding love amidst government intrigue. There are some mixed messages as stated above but Sally Hawkins is so good in this that those can be easily dismissed in favor of an earned investment in her relationship with the creature. When it sets aside the real world for just a moment in favor of a fantasy of the two dancing like Fred and Ginger in an old black-and-white movie it doesn’t matter that one of them looks like the Gill Man from an old Universal horror film, their relationship transcends all that. The film is firmly about those two with the other protagonists taking a backseat at times much to their detriment. Giles gets one great scene confronting his “disability,” when he comes out to a friendly diner worker who immediately turns on him and bars him from ever returning to the restaurant. With Elisa gone, too, he really doesn’t have anyone else anymore. Like Elisa, he is a lonely person and now he doesn’t even have her. The ending is beautifully shot but there is a degree of melancholy to it, too. We’re told through some voice over that the lovers lived happily-ever-after but that is revealed to be just an assumption after all. It’s magical and sweet but it still has to drop just the tiniest bit of realism into that final moment to, you know, ground it.

Academy Award Nominations:

Best Picture: Guillermo del Toro and J. Miles Dale (won)

Best Director: Guillermo del Toro (won)

Best Actress: Sally Hawkins

Best Supporting Actor: Richard Jenkins

Best Supporting Actress: Octavia Spencer

Best Original Screenplay: Guillermo del Toro and Vanessa Taylor

Best Cinematography: Dan Laustsen

Best Costume Design: Luis Sequeira

Best Film Editing: Sidney Wolinsky

Best Original Score: Alexandre Desplat (won)

Best Production Design: Paul Denham Austerberry, Shane Vieau and Jeff Melvin (won)

Best Sound Editing: Nathan Robitaille and Nelson Ferreira

Best Sound Mixing: Christian Cooke, Brad Zoern and Glan Gauthier

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Release Date: December 1, 2017

Running Time: 123 Minutes

Rated R

Starring: Sally Hawkins, Michael Shannon, Richard Jenkins, Doug Jones, 

Michael Stuhlbarg and Octavia Spencer

Directed By: Guillermo del Toro