The trailers for The Shape of Water are misleading. These previews make you think that this is some esoteric science fiction exploration. But it is really a love story — admittedly an odd love story about a creature, a mute, some spies and a sadist. Have fun!
The Shape of Water (Sally Hawkins, Michael Shannon, Richard Jenkins, Octavia Spencer, Michael Stuhlbarg, Doug Jones) – The Shape of Water easily stands as the most unusual movie of the year and one of the oddest love stories since Beauty and the Beast. Set in the Cold War, Water takes place in a small town that houses a super-secret military installation (think Roswell, New Mexico).
Inside the base, a team of scientists led by a maniacal security officer, Richard Strickland (Michael Shannon), inspects, prods, pokes, and tortures an alien creature (Doug Jones in a reptilian costume). Viewed as hostile, this human-like form lives in a water tank. It is a cruel existence broken only when a lonely, mute janitor named Elisa (Sally Hawkins) puts a hard-boiled egg on the edge of the pool where the creature exercises. An immediate connection is made between this stranded alien and the verbally deficient Elisa.
Elisa lives with an aging, unemployed, gay artist named Giles (Richard Jenkins). They both live sad lives made tolerable only by their mutual love of old black-and-white musicals that they watch incessantly.
Elisa’s only other friend is Zelda (Octavia Spencer), her partner in cleaning the floors, bathrooms, and laboratories in the installation. Zelda talks all the time, which suits Elisa just fine. The two share time, intimacies, and secrets. Zelda knows something is up with Elisa’s weird feelings for this creature. But it isn’t until Elisa hatches a plan to kidnap aquaman before Strickland kills him that Zelda becomes a co-conspirator.
Meanwhile, the Russians have penetrated the installation through one of the scientists, Dr. Bob Hoffstetler (played by the wonderful Michael Stuhlbarg). As Elisa and Giles execute the escape, Hoffstetler inadvertently stumbles on the plot and helps them.
The rest of the movie is a pure, warm fantasy chase tinged with stereotyped spies, a one-dimensional bad guy, and a scene right out of La La Land. While Water is certainly unique, it borrows liberally from Cold War spy flicks, E.T., Splash, and Beauty and the Beast. Thus, it scores high in originality though it feels familiar.
As for the acting, let’s face it: Any movie with Michael Shannon is guaranteed to be wonderfully strange. Sally Hawkins is surprising even though she doesn’t speak. Spencer steals every scene in which she appears, and I mean that in a good way. And Jenkins hasn’t been this lovable since The Visitor.
Director/writer/producer Guillermo del Toro may best be known for helming and penning Pan’s Labyrinth and Hellboy but he enters a new level here. The Shape of Water is not a masterpiece, but it manages to cover new ground while plowing old themes in a mystic, engaging and hopeful way.
With lots of Oscar buzz, The Shape of Water is well worth your time this holiday season.