The whimsical title music puts you in the mood for a fairy tale. But the voice-over by a character we later learn is named Giles (Richard Jenkins) sets that expectation slightly askew. “Would I tell you about her?” he asks. “The princess without voice. Or perhaps I would just warn you about the truth of these facts. And the tale of love and loss. And the monster who tried to destroy it all.” A tale of love and loss? A monster?
It’s 1962, in “the last days of a fair prince’s reign.” A time when America is losing the space race to the Soviets and the Cuban Missile Crisis begins playing out on radio broadcasts in the background. Our princess is Elisa Esposito (Sally Hawkins), a mute young woman who lives above a Baltimore movie theater, across the hall from Giles. She works as a janitor at a secretive government facility. Besides Giles, Elisa’s only other friend is Zelda Fuller (Octavia Spencer), a mother hen who looks after Elisa at work.
Their workplace is beset by fear when a new “asset” arrives, under the charge of Richard Strickland (Michael Shannon), a rigid, racist, condescending government operative whose mission is to understand what makes “the asset” tick. The asset? Elisa discovers it’s a human-like amphibian (Doug Jones, under clingy prosthetics), who has been kidnapped from his home in a South American river and brought here for study. Strickland’s boss, General Hoyt, believes learning the secret of the creature’s ability to breathe in both air and water is a potential advantage for America’s struggling space program.
What little we learn about Elisa’s past comes out as Strickland interviews her and Zelda, to make sure they know to do their cleaning and ask no questions. Strickland observes she an orphan, right? Esposito, meaning abandoned or alone, was a common surname given to orphans. Zelda, interpreting Elisa’s sign language, says Elisa was found by a river. Strickland wants to know if the scars on her neck, which remind one of gills, was an injury that explains her inability to speak. No, she’s been mute since birth.
Elisa feels immediately drawn to the creature. She sneaks into its chamber and slowly befriends it, offering hard-boiled eggs and kindness. In a world where she is viewed as incomplete and lacking, she feels the creature sees her only for who she is. Thus begins a friendship that blossoms into love. The erotic promo poster shows them embracing under water, so it’s no spoiler to reveal that Elisa will risk everything to save the creature from being sliced up for analysis.
See It
The Shape of Water snagged dozens of nominations and wins in the 2017/18 awards season, led by Oscars for best picture, direction, music, and production design. Sally Hawkins received only a best actress nom, and I for one would not have argued had she won. She is endearing as the timid, fragile, and lonely deaf woman who longs for intimacy. Likewise, Richard Jenkins is perfect as Giles, the talented illustrator whose work has become obsolete in a renaissance of photography. Their moments together, such as this one, are the best in the film: Seated side by side on a couch, they watch as Shirley Temple and Bill “Bojangles” Robinson tap-dance up those stairs in 1935’s The Little Colonel. They mimic the dance steps together. Utterly charming. I’d watch a movie just about the friendship between these two.
The production design reinforces the fairy tale feel. The frame is chock full of 60s artifacts, everything in muted colors and exaggerated just a bit to render a world that is recognizable and yet mildly fanciful as well. I couldn’t help but be reminded of Tony Gilliam’s world of Brazil (1985).
And that brings up an interesting point about the richness of the production. Del Torro was hounded by multiple allegations of appropriation or outright plagiarism, none convincing. I’m tempted to put that down to the cascade of oblique references throughout his work that evoke fragmentary feelings from other movies – nothing so obvious as imitation or homage. The creature was admittedly inspired by the amphibian monster in The Black Lagoon. You can’t see Hawkins and the creature sitting together on the edge of his tank without thinking of Splash; in the daring rescue attempt they’re even unexpectedly aided by a scientist who changed his mind. Even at the end, as Strickland is torturing the doctor to gain information, he takes an interlude to praise his choice of candy; I immediately think of Jules in Pulp Fiction, talking about burgers with the two kids he and Vincent have been sent to confront.
Beautiful images and delightful dialog abound. Too many to catalog. There’s Elisa, taking the morning train home from work. She rested her head against the window as the orange morning sun streams through, casting her reflection. Lovely. Or unexpected humor, such as Giles reporting to Elisa, “Now, you said that – you know, he was worshiped like a god. Now, is he a god? I dunno if he’s a god. I mean he ate a cat, so I mean, I don’t, I don’t know!” We even learn the sign language for “fuck you.” The Shape of Water is a collidescope of such masterful touches.
And yet … while The Shape of Water is masterfully done, and I rate it highly and recommend it, I nonetheless found myself somewhat disappointed as the final credits rolled. I admired the craft of the production, the crispness of the dialog, and most especially the superlative acting. But I also felt manipulated. The good characters are spotlessly decent. The bad characters are exaggeratedly evil. (Michael Shannon is chillingly monstrous and loathsome from his first appearance to his last.) By leaning so heavily into standard stereotypes, del Torro clearly doesn’t want to allow viewers any room to contemplate nuances or anticipate anything other than the obvious denouement. Del Torro has worthy themes – acceptance of the disadvantaged, tolerance of difference – but his heavy-handed characterizations and by-the-book finale reduce rather than enrich the emotional impact we feel as Giles’ ending voice-over reveals (finally) the meaning of the title and the promised truth of this tale about love, loss … and monsters.