What can I say about my love for The Shape Of Water that hasn’t already been expressed in the glowing reviews that it has already received? It’s even been warmly embraced by the Oscar voters, who gave it the Best Picture Oscar of 2017. Guillermo del Toro’s wondrous fairy tale, about an unusual love story taking place at the height of the Cold War, is at times charming, warm and loving, and extremely weird. And it’s all good. The mesmerizing Sally Hawkins plays Elisa, a mute woman who works as a cleaning woman at a government facility.
One day, a special item is brought into the facility, a strange fish-man (played by Doug Jones in a performance that’s just as challenging--and silent--as Hawkins’). This fish man comes with his own jailer, the man who caught him in South America, Richard Strickland, a hard-nosed martinet played by Michael Shannon, whose black-hearted performance feels just a little over the top at times. But this story is framed as a fairy tale that’s being told to us by Richard Jenkins, who plays Elisa’s best friend, a closeted gay artist who watches old movies with her on the TV. And when seen from his eyes, even Strickland’s over the top antics make sense.
Octavia Spencer and Michael Stuhlbarg round out the wonderful cast; Spencer plays the delightful Zelda, who’s Elisa’s co-worker at the facility as well as her other close friend and confidant. Stuhlbarg is, on the surface, another co-worker of Elisa’s, a scientist at the lab. Yet he’s also a spy for the Soviet Union, keeping his Russian masters apprised of the situation with the strange fish man.
The story, like most fairy tales, is a simple one. Elisa, appalled by the abuse that the captured fish man suffers at the hands of Strickland, decides to rescue him with the help of her friends. Yet things take an interesting turn when Elisa and the fish man consummate their friendship in her apartment during one memorable scene in a flooded bathroom. The Shape of Water is clearly an ode to monster movies, and how they reflected the ‘odd man out’ in society.
But here, it’s not just the fish man who’s a stand-in for the misbegotten. Elisa and her friends represent the downtrodden of society, those who are unseen and ignored by the majority--thus making their act of defiance coming from left field, because Strickland at first suspects the fish man’s kidnapping was the result of a Soviet spy squad. But even Stuhlbarg’s spy defies his soviet masters by siding with Elisa and her desire to safely return the fish man to the ocean.
I adore The Shape of Water because it acknowledges the misfits of society, and in doing so informs us that we are not alone, that we are not truly outcasts. And the fact that the Oscars have so warmly embraced this film makes me feel even better, because this Best Picture win was not only a vindication for monster movie fans like myself, but also another resounding acknowledgement that in this cold, soulless climate that we presently live in, there are still people who care. And so, not only is the mere act of watching The Shape of Water a salve for the soul for those who feel left out of society, but the warm reception the film received is also an affirmation that there is still a strong spark of hope for society itself. --SF
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