*Original written January 18th, 2018*
I have a strange history when it comes to Del Toro and his films, I tend to like his work a lot, but never truly love it (Aside from Pans Labyrinth). I really had no idea what to expect with The Shape of Water, I knew it would be weird for sure, the concept is bonkers and original, but I never expected to love it as much as I did. For me, this was by far Del Toro's most effective work.
It's a truly original, quirky and whimsical fairy tale like romance. A mute cleaner Elisa (Sally Hawkins) falls in love with a humanoid like sea creature (Doug Jones) that has been kept prisoner in the lab she cleans. Once psychotic colonel Richard (Micheal Shannon) gets orders to kill the creature for dissection, Elisa tries to free the sea creature.
I really have to give the film credit for being original and for a studio to release a film this weird and out there, it's going to be interesting to see how this resonates with mainstream audiences, but I have a hard time imagining they'd accept it. What's craziest about The Shape of Water is just how well all this works, it comes together for an emotional and highly touching film about love and acceptance in the backdrop of the cold war in the 1960's.
This feels like the perfect love story in film that we need right now and while I had some minor pacing issues with it (It's something I find with all of Del Toro's films), everything made up for it. The relationship between Elisa and the creature is truly touching and sweet, going to some really interesting places that I'd heard about, but still didn't expect.
The design of the creature is wonderful and unique, it's not weird enough to be freaky, but is human enough to connect with it easily. There's some obvious inspiration from The Creature from the Black Lagoon here and a little bit of Hellboy's Abe Sapien (There were outrageous rumours that this was a secret prequel to Hellboy. It's not.) Jones performance was wonderful too, the creatures starts off with a childlike sense of confusion and fear before it adapts to its surroundings. There's also some moments of dark humour to be found with the creature's naivety, that cat scene I won't forget in a while.
While the creature sure is a main point of the film, the real star here is a Sally Hawkins, who is absolutely wonderful as the mute cleaner who falls in love with the creature. It was great to see a film where the lead character has to communicate a lot with sign language and just facial expressions, it just felt really fresh and seeing two people who couldn't talk develop a relationship based on their mutual interests was so sweet to watch. Some of my favourite moments were just Hawkins feeding the creature boiled eggs and playing him old vinyls. I was fully invested by this thing, which is very rare for me.
Michael Shannon, Michael Stuhlbarg, Richard Jenkins and Octavia Spencer also provide solid support. Jenkins probably having the most developed arc of the supporting characters, playing a repressed gay man in 1960's America was an interesting choice, but made for a compelling side story. Shannon does a great job, but he is in danger of being typecast as mentally unhinged Christian lawmen in period dramas, he's more or less playing his character from Boardwalk Empire here.
Being a Del Toro film, I was not disappointed by the visual style, even his worst films look great, The Shape of Water is no different. From the opening shot to the beautiful ending, this is a feast for the eyes. The sets are gorgeous and realised, and the idea of setting it in the '60s during the backdrop of the Cold War was an inspired choice.
The Shape of Water is already looking to be one of my favourite films of the year, and it's only January. Please support original films like this. This is a beautiful work of art that is unique and there won't be anything like this for a while. God bless you Del Toro, this might just be your magnum opus.
10/10 Dans
The Shape of Water opens February 14th in theaters in the UK
Watch the trailer below:
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