☆☆☆½
Guillermo del Toro has made a genuinely heartfelt, impeccably and lavishly constructed romantic fantasy with The Shape of Water. The look of the film and its presentation of its fantastic world are unassailable; but when the movie heads into romantic territory, which is frequently, it has a hard time accurately conveying the emotional states of its two unusual main characters.
Elisa Espinosa (Sally Hawkins) is a janitor working in the top-secret laboratory area of a super-secret, national-security building. When there's an experimental rocket that needs dusting or a lab that needs to be cleaned up after an accident, Elisa and her motherly co-worker Zelda (Octavia Spencer) go take care of things, even the pee-stained bathrooms.
At night (or rather during the day, since they work the graveyard shift), they all lead lonely lives: Zelda has a husband who never speaks, while Elisa is a mute whose only friend is her closeted next-door neighbor, Giles (Richard Jenkins). Gloomy, yes, but their worlds are quiet and well-ordered, and they'll be changed by the arrival at the lab of a strange, humanoid aquatic creature. As soon as Elisa sees the Creature she is mesmerized.
And while the Creature brutally attacks Strickland, the quasi-military security specialist assigned to look after it (he's played, as intensely and disturbingly as ever by Michael Shannon), it is gentle and tender with Elisa, who visits it at night. They develop a connection, and when Elisa overhears one of the doctors (Michael Stuhlbarg) implying that the Creature is going to be killed, she makes up her mind to save this gentle, fascinating specimen.
After a tremendously well-orchestrated and edited set piece detailing just how she gets the creature home, Shannon's security head begins a take-no-prisoners approach to questioning everyone who works there about what they saw that evening. Elisa, Zelda, Giles and the shifty, possibly untrustworthy Dr. Hoffstetler fall into an alliance of protection, not just for Elisa, but for the sad and lonely Creature itself.
Played by limber-limbed actor (not politician) Doug Jones, the Creature, named the Amphibian Man in the credits, is from somewhere deep in the Amazon, just like his cinematic forebearer the Creature from the Black Lagoon. The Shape of Water is that movie played from the opposite view, taking the approach that the classic image of the Creature holding a screaming woman could be a much different story if the woman were looking at him tenderly and locked in an embrace.
In its native environment, the Creature is revered as a god, and may indeed harness a bevy of untold powers, not the least of which is to make Elisa fall madly in love with it. As much as it tries, though, The Shape of Water can never -- for me, at least -- quite get over that hurdle of interspecies romance. There's a fine line between a giggle and a swoon, and though luscious to look at and listen to (thanks to Alexandre Desplat's score) and a marvel to behold as a technical achievement, The Shape of Water keeps landing on the side of the giggle. (This romantic monster movie can be made -- just look at 1986's creepy-yet-lovestruck The Fly.)
Small subplots with Elisa's neighbor Giles and Shannon's security chief never really go anywhere or add much substance (though they amp up the weirdness, sometimes distractingly), and while thoroughly wonderful in her role Spencer can never seem to move much beyond playing the sidekick.
These are not insignificant hurdles for the movie, which pops with moments of seemingly unnecessary violence and gore, but still ... there is so much to recommend here. The romance may not be as vivid or aching as the movie hopes it to be, but it is sweet and captivating nonetheless, and the movie goes overboard to place us in a highly stylized, glamorized version of its quite-specific setting: Baltimore, 1962. The optimistic over-confidence in militarized science and corporate branding, underscored by a bright and bouncy mentality of super-consumerism, is everywhere. It's deliciously undercut by a pessimistic self-awareness of what all of that Space Age sprightliness would lead to, and the ugly racial and social tensions beneath it all.
The Shape of Water may be more satisfying as a visual experience than an emotional one, though the real passion that del Toro and his cast try valiantly to bring to the romance will almost certainly feel genuine to many, especially with an ending that is undeniably gorgeous and affecting. If The Shape of Water doesn't quite float for me, that doesn't mean the cinematic ocean in which it swims isn't worth diving into and seeing for yourself. It's quite a beautiful thing.
Viewed December 7, 2017 -- Cinerama Dome
1930
Elisa Espinosa (Sally Hawkins) is a janitor working in the top-secret laboratory area of a super-secret, national-security building. When there's an experimental rocket that needs dusting or a lab that needs to be cleaned up after an accident, Elisa and her motherly co-worker Zelda (Octavia Spencer) go take care of things, even the pee-stained bathrooms.
At night (or rather during the day, since they work the graveyard shift), they all lead lonely lives: Zelda has a husband who never speaks, while Elisa is a mute whose only friend is her closeted next-door neighbor, Giles (Richard Jenkins). Gloomy, yes, but their worlds are quiet and well-ordered, and they'll be changed by the arrival at the lab of a strange, humanoid aquatic creature. As soon as Elisa sees the Creature she is mesmerized.
And while the Creature brutally attacks Strickland, the quasi-military security specialist assigned to look after it (he's played, as intensely and disturbingly as ever by Michael Shannon), it is gentle and tender with Elisa, who visits it at night. They develop a connection, and when Elisa overhears one of the doctors (Michael Stuhlbarg) implying that the Creature is going to be killed, she makes up her mind to save this gentle, fascinating specimen.
After a tremendously well-orchestrated and edited set piece detailing just how she gets the creature home, Shannon's security head begins a take-no-prisoners approach to questioning everyone who works there about what they saw that evening. Elisa, Zelda, Giles and the shifty, possibly untrustworthy Dr. Hoffstetler fall into an alliance of protection, not just for Elisa, but for the sad and lonely Creature itself.
Played by limber-limbed actor (not politician) Doug Jones, the Creature, named the Amphibian Man in the credits, is from somewhere deep in the Amazon, just like his cinematic forebearer the Creature from the Black Lagoon. The Shape of Water is that movie played from the opposite view, taking the approach that the classic image of the Creature holding a screaming woman could be a much different story if the woman were looking at him tenderly and locked in an embrace.
In its native environment, the Creature is revered as a god, and may indeed harness a bevy of untold powers, not the least of which is to make Elisa fall madly in love with it. As much as it tries, though, The Shape of Water can never -- for me, at least -- quite get over that hurdle of interspecies romance. There's a fine line between a giggle and a swoon, and though luscious to look at and listen to (thanks to Alexandre Desplat's score) and a marvel to behold as a technical achievement, The Shape of Water keeps landing on the side of the giggle. (This romantic monster movie can be made -- just look at 1986's creepy-yet-lovestruck The Fly.)
Small subplots with Elisa's neighbor Giles and Shannon's security chief never really go anywhere or add much substance (though they amp up the weirdness, sometimes distractingly), and while thoroughly wonderful in her role Spencer can never seem to move much beyond playing the sidekick.
These are not insignificant hurdles for the movie, which pops with moments of seemingly unnecessary violence and gore, but still ... there is so much to recommend here. The romance may not be as vivid or aching as the movie hopes it to be, but it is sweet and captivating nonetheless, and the movie goes overboard to place us in a highly stylized, glamorized version of its quite-specific setting: Baltimore, 1962. The optimistic over-confidence in militarized science and corporate branding, underscored by a bright and bouncy mentality of super-consumerism, is everywhere. It's deliciously undercut by a pessimistic self-awareness of what all of that Space Age sprightliness would lead to, and the ugly racial and social tensions beneath it all.
The Shape of Water may be more satisfying as a visual experience than an emotional one, though the real passion that del Toro and his cast try valiantly to bring to the romance will almost certainly feel genuine to many, especially with an ending that is undeniably gorgeous and affecting. If The Shape of Water doesn't quite float for me, that doesn't mean the cinematic ocean in which it swims isn't worth diving into and seeing for yourself. It's quite a beautiful thing.
Viewed December 7, 2017 -- Cinerama Dome
1930
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