A tale of love and loss (and Princesses and Monsters), the films plays out like Beauty & The Beast meets a strange-version-of Moulin Rouge. It’s a very simple story to plunge into, yet it’s oddly complex.
Set against the backdrop of the heightened Cold War 60s hides a high-security government laboratory where Elisa (Sally Hawkins) is trapped in a life of isolation. She’s a cleaning woman by night. By day, Elisa watches old films, classic films, French films…and lives in the fantasy of her mind.
It’s the perfect set-up when eventually she falls in love with the ‘monster’ science experiment over a combination of hard-boiled eggs and Benny Goodman music.
Elisa’s love interest is an amphibious-gill scaled and slimy creature (Doug Jones) with a heart…and a lot of curiosity. Chained with an iron collar he looks part gecko and part frog with six pack abs. He spends most of his time treading water in his aquatic drum, only appearing at the sight and sound of Eliza. He waits in captivity and she of course, wants to plan her escape.
Since the two love interests can’t speak, they rely on the voice of Elisa’s closeted-gay neighbor (Richard Jenkins) to express what’s right and wrong. When it comes to love, everything seems to be right. In the shape of love, we watch the monster mold from ugly to loving, and that eventually makes him beautiful.
Michael Shannon plays his usual unlikeable character (though we loved him in Nocturnal Animals). This time he’s Strickland, a snarly security scientist who cattle prods the monster at any opportunity. As a cliché character he thinks the creature is stupid so Shannon treats it with cruelty. Either way, mean people suck!
Octavia Spencer is underused as the ‘other’ cleaning lady that Elisa confides in, though since Elisa is a mute, so it’s Octavia who supplies the voice and out loud concerns.
With a romantic soundtrack by Award-winning Alexander Desplat at times we feel like we’re in an old Parisian cinema, yet the problem is in an old Parisian film we’d feel a true connection. In Beauty and the Beast, the monster is eventually humanized. With this, he’s the monster that stays a monster, even though it’s clear he has a thing for Elisa in whatever way a monster can have a thing for someone. Or at least according to the world of director Guillermo del Toro, who this time outdoes himself. As strange and mystical as Pans Labyrinth was…this has its own unexpected identity.
This is the strangest but most beautiful film of the year doused in tones of teal and green. Apparently, time is a river flowing from our past and there’s no doubt the theme is water, water, everywhere. As the water rises, we feel as if we’re in one of those Niagara Falls boats wearing a rain slicker.
The Shape of Water has a heart and bounces with all its poignancy and beauty, but in the end, it overflows into unnecessary, and a little bit of head-scratching WTF?! 3 tiaras