"He's a wild creature. We can't ask him to be anything else." - The Shape of Water

Directed by Guillermo del Toro
U. S., 2017
123 minutes

Titular quote by: Richard Jenkins as Giles


Happy Valentine's Day.

This was not planned in advance, it's just taken me this long to really dive into this review - 'dive' hehehehehehe- I'm sorry. Two viewings and several Oscar nominations later, I can summarize all of my rather unusual opinions about The Shape of Water, a movie which everybody loves at the moment, including myself... only I seem to love it just the slightest bit less than most people would expect me to. This is the burden of fanboying about a director so much. Even if the latest film from Guillermo del Toro has compelling characters, a strong narrative, stunning aesthetics and, most importantly, very sincere emotions... if I was to rank this film based on his previous filmography... it's approximately in 4th place... and could very well be in 5th (Could somebody please mail me the Criterion edition of Cronos!? Please!?) This is my preliminary warning regarding obvious bias based on loving someone's work too much. Allow me be a nit-picky fanboy this one time before I tell you how much I love this fantastical romance regardless.

Eliza Esposito cannot speak. Not for lack of trying to connect with people, though she does not have many friends. She is physically unable of using her voice. In her everyday life in 1960s Baltimore, she is able to get by. She enjoys watching black-and-white films with her next door neighbour Giles, eats well enough, and works the cleaning shift at a government laboratory with her coworker Zelda. She may have a life, but it is still lonely without anyone she can truly express herself to. Then the Asset arrives. A strange fish creature, captured in the Amazon and transported to the United States for study, at first appears to pose a threat to her. Gradually, though, she begins to connect with him; in many ways, she fall in love with him. The government does not see in this creature what Eliza sees in him, instead only intending to brutally exploit his features in the hopes that they will help them beat the Russians in the space race. When such a frightening but elegant creature's life is on the line, though, the people who have grown emotional towards him must act in order to save him.

I'm going to give you my main issue with this film as a fanboy before I get on to the more critical points about the film. This movie, Crimson Peak, and del Toro's book/TV series The Strain make me a little worried about del Toro potentially copying himself. I mentioned in my critique of Crimson Peak that I noticed similarities to his excellent early film The Devil's Backbone. This was something similar to what happened when I read The Strain, and noticed similarities in design between the vampires in that series and the mutant vampires in the del Toro-directed Blade II. This did paint my expectations in anticipation of The Shape of Water, as the only logical step would be that he may start referencing Pan's Labyrinth, my favourite film of all time.

Well... this suspicion was not unfounded.

The Shape of Water and Pan's Labyrinth are not exact analogues, but there is a certain amount of familiarity in the basic structure of the story. There are character types that are similar, story beats that are similar, lines of dialogue that are similar, and even shots that seem to exactly echo shots from Pan's Labyrinth. Even the major conceit of this film, the thing that many people are making fun of, bears a striking resemblance to an early draft that del Toro indulged on the commentary track for Pan's Labyrinth. This film was made with a different crew and shot in a different country, but has enough elements that I recognized that it seemed more like an issue with the script by del Toro and Vanessa Taylor being somewhat familiar. If you are as much a fan of del Toro as I am, that probably will paint your impression of what you see in the film and how much you can look past it.

So... did I look past it?

...

Is Crimson Peak still on my Top Ten of 2015?

As much as I did notice the similarities more readily in The Shape of Water, I was more than willing to embrace the elements that were so very true to del Toro's aesthetic, as well as the elements that did distinguish it enough from its predecessor. While the story beats are at times familiar, the thematic material for both films is very distinct. Pan's Labyrinth explores ideas of Choice vs. Obedience, the subversion of authority, and the simultaneous attraction and danger of fantasy. The Shape of Water is a parable on behalf of the outcasts, both literal and figurative. The heroes of this film are people on the fringes of society, not for lack of trying to live with what they have, though. For whatever reason, society doesn't appreciate them; their desires, their struggles, their pains, their voices, none of them are being heard or embraced. To live in the world that they live in, they can only rely on each other, as none of them can judge the other.

Sally Hawkins is simply amazing as Eliza. In many ways, her character is one that del Toro has been desperately trying to give life to for a very long time, as he has often expressed his love of silent storytelling. Without her voice, Hawkins can only rely on her ability to express herself through facial and body language. The result is a flawless, purely emotional performance. No other performance by an actress this year matches this one in terms of its versatility and its sincerity. Even in movies that I find to have a greater whole than this one, none of them possess the exact same quality as this one performance. Hawkins is perfect.

By contrast, nearly every other actor in this film uses dialogue to express their emotions, which both surprises me and makes total sense. It builds on the isolation that Eliza feels in this society. Even when they are being more explicit in saying what they feel, the writing on its own is really exceptional, full of double meanings and often great tension, and the actors give real weight to those feelings. Richard Jenkins is excellent as Giles, a genuine friend with hidden feelings of his own. A particular scene in a diner between Giles and the waiter marks the most potent emotional scene between two humans in the entire film.  Octavia Spencer also does fine work as Zelda, a character in a somewhat familiar vein of her last two Oscar nominated roles, but made distinct by keeping her constantly on edge. She's trying to get by without causing any trouble at all. Can you blame her when she's being threatened by a madman with a cattle prod and two rotting fingers? Colonel Strickland may be the most interesting parallel to Pan's Labyrinth of them all, though again made distinct. Where Vidal is the absolute representation of Fascist dictatorship and dominance, Strickland is constantly struggling to maintain that dominance over his family, over his inferiors, and in the face of his superiors. It's easy to find Vidal the more memorable entity as a result, but Strickland, largely thanks to Michael Shannon, is the better fit for this movie. He certainly succeeds in dominating the scene whenever he's in it.

Did I say that Strickler was the most interesting parallel? Maybe... but it's not the one that impacts me the most. One thing has never changed about my feelings towards del Toro. Regardless of what story he tells, one thing remains consistent: You always know how the monsters make you feel. I want to understand Santi. I want to converse and be friends with the Faun. I want to go on adventures with Hellboy. I want to fight the Kaiju.

I felt seen when I met the Asset.

The creature in The Shape of Water is the most empathetic creature del Toro has ever created... again... having not seen Cronos... I am sad. With that limited perspective, however, I felt more connection to the amphibious man than any other monster in del Toro's films. Doug Jones once again dons the elegant and frightening skin of the creature and inhabits a character who is one part Creature from the Black Lagoon, one part the Beast from Cocteau's La belle et la bête, and in one powerful image, Quasimodo himself. Jones and del Toro know how to make a creature feel like a classic Universal monster, but more than that, they have created one with a personality all its own. He does not speak. He does not comprehend human behaviour. He does not try to be anything other than himself. His character is almost entirely reactionary, but every one of his reactions is felt deeply. This is simplicity of character at its finest. They're no question why he and Eliza are absolutely meant to be together onscreen.

I have grown simultaneously very critical and very indulgent of del Toro's work in the last four years. I've grown to expect a great deal of innovation every time I see his latest film, but over the last few years, I've also come to expect some things that are more familiar. Nearly every director falls into these kind of situations if they mean to or not, and it's the fan's decision whether or not they can accept that or not. I accept The Shape of Water; to be more exact, I embrace it. I embrace it because it is just as confident and just as emotionally gratifying as any of del Toro's previous films. It brings out astounding work from some exceptional actors, two of which belong on a high pedestal for their ability to convey pure feeling without saying anything. And it goes without saying, the aesthetics of the movie are flawless. Art direction, cinematography, editing, score, sound, costume, they're all astounding; there isn't a single image that isn't stunning to behold. As a fan of del Toro, I do hope that his next film will be one that is distinctly different from anything else he's done before. He's always been at his best when he make the audience witness the unfamiliar. That said, there are still plenty of unfamiliar elements to this film on its own, with the relationship at its centre speaking more volumes than most human relationships in modern films. At its heart, The Shape of Water is a simple, beautiful, endearing story of outcast people finding solace in one another; how fitting for a man who has made his career out of telling stories about the relationship between humans and monsters.


**** 1/2 out of *****