The Shape Of Water (2017)

 

Genre:   Romance/Fantasy             Time: 2h 3mins              Director: Guillermo del Toro

Quick Summary: Elisa, a lonely janitor, stumbles upon an amphibious creature that is held captive in a secret research facility. She then develops a unique relationship with the creature.

To say this film is stunning would be a gross understatement as del Toro easily used every shade of green out there and then invented some more, but they also managed to turn the bleak world of the 1960s into a place where you could believe a magical love story between a humanoid amphibian and a woman was not only possible but ever so dreamy. The world-building is absolutely amazing in this and it is full of equally amazing characters who are fully fleshed out and layered in metaphors.

Sally Hawkins, though, as Elisa delivers a lot of heart to the movie. She’s an emotional powerhouse without speaking a single word. In one scene, she forces Giles to repeat everything he’s saying to ensure he understands. And though Jenkins pretty much deadpans the translations, the pain in Hawkins’ face is enough to carry the emotional heft of the scene.

This is a swooningly romantic film but also an assuredly weird one. The cinematography, dark and deep, feels like a lucid dream and Del Toro draws out the story like a crazed poet. When Elisa's ear touches the creature's chest, we hear the crashing of waves, and while everyone wants to use this creature to wage war, she wants only to make love. She does, and it is tremendously beautiful Guillermo Del Toro has always made sensationally strange movies, but with this one, it is as if he, like his heroine, is finally unafraid to be beautiful.

Del Toro chooses to tell his story about a woman with a disability: Elisa cannot speak. He does not simply feature it; he bases his story around it. Elisa connects with the Creature because, like her, it does not verbally speak. She teaches it to sign language. Some of the film’s most powerful emotional beats would not work without her lack of verbal speech. It is one of the most productive and successful depictions of disability I have seen.

The Shape of Water, for me, is a symphony of reality and fantasy. It combines the two in such a way that makes you almost wish it was a true story. The film looks and sounds like a dream.

9/10

"Unable To Perceive The Shape Of You, I Find You All Around Me."

""He Does Not Know What I Lack Or How I Am Incomplete. He Sees Me For What I Am, As I Am.""