Review: The Shape of Water
As with Pan's Labyrinth and The Devil's Backbone before it, Guillermo del Toro's The Shape of Water is a decidedly adult fairy tale that both enchants and troubles. Set in the Baltimore of 1962 and revolving around a "princess with no voice" and "the monster who tried to end it all," The Shape of Water is a stunning achievement, a genre-blending tale of species-crossing love that also serves as a thoroughly affectionate tribute to a time when escapist cinema was an accepted and not at all condescended upon part of the moviegoing experience.
"The princess with no voice" is one Elisa Esposito (Sally Hawkins), a mute orphaned since birth who works as a cleaning woman at a secret government laboratory. Living above a movie theater, she looks after her neighbour Giles (Richard Jenkins), an artist and closeted gay man, and is close friends with her perennially talkative co-worker Zelda (a wonderfully sassy and protective Octavia Spencer). She may be silent but she is not without strength and certainly not without her carnal needs, as evidenced by her nightly masturbatory routine before she heads off for work.
So perhaps it's no big surprise that her interest, empathy and desires, romantic and otherwise, are piqued when she sets eyes on a fellow outsider, a sea creature (Doug Jones) that's been brought in to the facility by cruel government agent Richard Strickland (Michael Shannon, playing to type but effective nonetheless). Found in a South American river where the locals viewed him as a god, the creature is being considered by the Americans as a possible means of one-upping the Russians in the race to space. Whilst Strickland immediately reveals himself as "the monster" in this narrative, Dr. Robert Hoffstetler (Michael Stuhlbarg, the ever-reliable utility player who seems in every prestige film at the moment) unveils himself as a Russian double agent who believes the creature should be kept alive for further study and not killed and dissected as Strickland wishes.
The mute woman, her gay neighbour, her black female friend, and the lowly scientist band together to save the creature but it's a testament to del Toro's storytelling abilities that the film's underlying social commentary is seamlessly woven into its fairy tale fabric. The same goes for del Toro's combination of genres - romantic drama, musical, monster movie, fantasy, and spy thriller - which, under any circumstance, would be a nightmare of tonal dissonance. Yet, not only does it work but it works gloriously. It's hard not to be completely charmed by Elisa and the creature's romance as she coaxes him out of the water with hard-boiled eggs and jazz records. At one point, the film turns black and white, Elisa starts singing "You'll Never Know (Just How Much I Love You)" before she and the creature, dressed in top hat and tails, engage in a Fred and Ginger-type dance routine, a sequence that attests to how musicals have the power to transport (a quality sorely missing in last year's La La Land).
Cinematographer Dan Laustsen proves himself an especial MVP, his constant camera giving the impression of floating, his eye somehow discover seemingly endless variations of brown and green, and shifting lighting schemes to conjure up the various looks of the classic Hollywood films referenced within. Alexandre Desplat's score adds to the nostalgia without itself being nostalgic. The cast are exemplary, but it's fair to say the film very much rests on the slight shoulders of its leading lady, who is in such full control of a character that could have easily been too simpering and saccharine. Instead, Hawkins creates a heroine with a sense of agency, a figure who may have no voice but finds ways of expression, and a woman unafraid to go after what she wants.
The Shape of Water
Directed by: Guillermo del Toro
Written by: Guillermo del Toro, Vanessa Taylor
Starring: Sally Hawkins, Michael Shannon, Richard Jenkins, Octavia Spencer, Michael Stuhlbarg, Doug Jones, David Hewlett, Nick Searcy
