The Shape of Water (2017) / Fantasy-Thriller

MPAA Rated: R for sexual content, graphic nudity, violence and language
Running Time: 123 min.

Cast: Sally Hawkins, Michael Shannon, Richard Jenkins, Octavia Spencer, Michael Stuhlbarg, Doug Jones, Nick Searcy
Director: Guillermo del Toro
Screenplay: Guillermo del Toro, Vanessa Taylor
Review published December 3, 2017

Guillermo del Toro returns to his favorite playground once again, that realm where fantasy and reality co-exist, ever so tenuously.  Though worlds apart in terms of its story, The Shape of Water may remind some of the twisted fairy-tale tone and style of Del Toro's arguable best film, Pan's Labyrinth, another period film that merged flights of fancy with scenes of dark brutality, showing that the scariest of monsters lie not in our imagination - they lie within twisted men of power and desperation.

Set in a version of 1962 Baltimore, a top-secret government-run laboratory exists just outside of the U.S. capitol, where strange experiments take place, and the most prized among them has just arrived.  Into a secluded tank goes an amphibious humanoid creature (inspired by del Toro's love for Creature from the Black Lagoon), part man and part fish, in order to for the government to learn how it functions, pushing the United States in an edge against the Soviet Union in the space race and perhaps other military engagements.  Top-level government brass on both sides of the Cold War are keenly interested in getting their hands on the amphibian, though they see it more as a dumb animal than an intelligent creature, and not worth taking the time to know beyond desiring to dissect him to understand how he works.

However, there is one person that knows there's much more than meets the eye with this magnificent creature, worshipped as a god in his native South American habitat, and that person is Elisa, the mute and lovelorn late-night janitor of the amphibian's section of the facility, who soon develops a friendship, then something akin to love, with the bizarre entity. 

Guillermo del Toro stives for a heightened cinematic approach with The Shape of Water, which features sumptuous cinematography and a style of camerawork that denotes other genres that tread the line between fantasy and reality, such as musicals.  It's truly amazing to think that the film's budget is under $20 million, as it feels very much like a high-end production, capitalizing on being able to use the crew, sets and equipment of "The Strain", a TV show del Toro co-created for the FX network, owned by Fox.  The camera is rarely still, flowing through doors and rooms as if swimming, further evoking a dream-like quality that is also in keeping with the nature of the amphibious character at the heart of the story, especially in the ethereal score to accompany the images from Alexandre Desplat.  That the story is layered on cinema is literally in the film, as the apartments inhabited by Elisa and Giles literally are built upon a grand-style movie theater, showing a couple of (now) classic epic films.

Del Toro favorite, Doug Jones, gets as close as he's been to a lead performer in a film in playing the amphibious man, getting into the remarkably life-like suit (mostly practical, though enhanced with CG elements), and coming to life with his odd movements, angular stature, statuesque posture, and ability to draw a sympathetic array of reactions without uttering a single word of dialogue out loud (he learns a bit of sign language, courtesy of Elisa's instruction).  For a film that explores themes of loneliness, and finding unlikely companions under the most remarkable of circumstances, perhaps the strength of the film lies in Jones and Hawkins' ability to transcend dialogue to form a palpable bond we can believe amid circumstances that are set in so-called real-world situations.  Communication is the key to strong relationships, and it's in that ability to communicate with the audience that our relationship of the film itself holds true.

Del Toro explores how the bond between Elisa and the amphibious man is so strong, they are able to communicate without words in a way that seems almost effortless.  Meanwhile, all others with a voice are challenged to express themselves to just about anyone, from Giles, the gay man who isn't sure of signals he is getting from the employee of a local diner are flirtation, to Zelda, who admits that her marriage requires a lack of truthfulness in their relationship, to Dr. Robert Hoffstetler, who wants to do a good thing but is caught between the desires of those with more power, to Richard Strickland, whose thoughts are so inward to his own wants and needs that he has lost all connection or care to those around him.

The film also explores the difficulty of being treated as an "other" in society. The amphibian is a more extreme example of an outsider finding a society not willing or able to accept his differences, but his champions can relate, as Elisa the mute, Giles the gay man, and Zelda the black woman are not viewed on the same plane by many members of society that sees their way of thinking as the only way things should be, and anything outside of that is viewed as suspect or dangerous due to its "otherness".  There is a theme of the film of seeing beyond those differences to find love, and those that can't, succumb to a hateful form of ignorance that consumes their own healthful state of being in the process, corrupted by sociopathy when empathy is what's most desired, and most critical for our own ability to not destroy ourselves with our inability to connect to anyone or anything that isn't just like us.

Though the film is a fantasy set over a half century ago, the issues are ever more relevant in today's political discourse, as the battle has been brewing between those who see the world as a big multicultural community of brethren, and those who put themselves, their party, their race, their religion or their country above all others, seeing any request by someone who looks, thinks or believes differently as something to wage war against, rather than which to live in harmony with.  If we choose to live in fear, we battle the monsters in our own minds, and, if taken to far, we become the monster that we've tried so hard to avoid.

Qwipster's rating:

©2017 Vince Leo