‘The Shape of Water’ movie review

Leave it to director Guillermo del Toro to pull off a romance between a woman and a creature.  It’s a film that pays tribute to cinema, monster movies and outsiders marginalized by society.  ‘The Shape of Water’ is the strangest yet most enchanting film of the year.  The story works due to the incredible ensemble cast.  Sally Hawkins is almost guaranteed an Oscar nod for her wordless performance.  Her work is reminiscent of Charlie Chaplin.  It’s a dark allegorical fairy tale that is not meant for children.  This is not a campy horror film designed for cheap laughs.  Del Toro takes his characters seriously and expects the audience to do the same as well.  He masterfully blends a perfect mix of reality and fantasy into the story.  ‘The Shape of Water’ is ultimately about our desire for human connection and accepting others for who they are.

Before diving into the story, you have to approach it with an open mind.  It takes place circa 1962 in Baltimore at the height of the Cold War.  A mute woman named Elisa (Sally Hawkins) works as a janitor at a top-secret government facility on the night shift with her longtime friend and coworker Zelda (Octavia Spencer).  During the daytime, she lives in a loft above a movie palace and enjoys watching old musicals with her neighbor Giles (Richard Jenkins), a struggling artist trying to get an ad agency to buy his Jell-O artwork.  Her daily life is one of routines.  She wakes up, boils eggs, masturbates in her bathtub and takes the bus to work.  Zelda looks after her by punching the time clock when she is running late.

One night, while Elisa and Zelda are cleaning up at the facility, the new head of security Colonel Strickland (Michael Shannon) and his crew wheel an amphibian man (Doug Jones) into the research lab.  He’s nicknamed “the asset,” captured from the Amazon where the local natives consider him a god.  Strickland is assigned to keep the creature from escaping.  He ruthlessly pokes him with a cattle prod while researcher Dr. Robert Hoffstetler (Michael Stuhlbarg) wants to study him.  The Cold War backdrop heats up when the Russians get involved and want to stop the Americans from getting a competitive edge.  Shannon plays the menacing bad guy to the hilt.  When Elisa and Zelda are assigned to keep the enclosure clean, it gives her an opportunity to look into the tank.  It is love at first sight.

During her lunch breaks, Elisa sits next to the aquarium holding tank and shares her hard-boiled eggs with him.  She plays him music on a turntable and teaches him some basic sign language.  They form a bond with each other as outsiders.  When Elisa finds out that they plan to kill the amphibian man and dissect him for research, the movie turns into an exciting thriller.  The big escape is midway through the film when she hides him in her bathtub.  This is where their relationship turns into a love story.  You have to see it to believe it.  Going any further would spoil the surprises.  All that needs to be said is that it is truly magical and makes ‘The Shape of Water’ magnificent.

Del Toro makes the story flow effortlessly.  That’s the sign of a genius filmmaker.  The production design by Paul D. Austerberry is impeccable.  Everything from Elisa’s loft, the grand movie palace below and the research laboratory are intricately crafted.  Cinematographer Dan Laustsen uses aqua green and blue colors throughout the entire movie that adds to the magic of the story.  Besides del Toro’s powerful vision, Hawkins delivers one of the best performances of the year without uttering a single word.  ‘The Shape of Water’ is an unforgettable film that will simply blow your mind.

5

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