DECEMBER 12, 2017
Guillermo del Toro certainly loves the movies.
His latest film, “The Shape of Water,” is a Cold War thriller, a musical, a heist movie, an interspecies romance and a homage to 1950s-style monster movies. Whew.
It is also the most nominated film of the year by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, which on Monday nominated “The Shape of Water” for 7 Golden Globe Awards — Best Motion Picture Drama, Best Director (del Toro), Best Actress in a Drama (Sally Hawkins), Best Supporting Actor (Richard Jenkins), Best Supporting Actress (Octavia Spencer), Best Screenplay (del Toro and Vanessa Taylor) and Best Original Score (Alexandre Desplat).
Even more than his Oscar-winning Mexican compatriots Alfonso Cuarón (“Gravity”) and Alejandro González Iñárritu (“Birdman,” “The Revenant”), I would consider del Toro to be contemporary cinema’s premier fabulist, creating imagery that is uniquely his, whether his work is under control (such as 2006’s memorable “Pan’s Labyrinth”) and even when it’s not (2015’s cuckoo “Crimson Peak”).
“The Shape of Water” is Guillermo del Toro at the height of his imaginative powers, yet ironically, unlike many of his creations that could have taken place anytime and anywhere, the setting here is very specific — a rainy Baltimore in 1962. It was an era in which men wore raincoats and snap-brim fedoras, while Baltimore women held umbrellas waiting for the bus on their way to work.
Elisa Esposito (Sally Hawkins) lives in a world of isolation. Having sustained an injury as an infant that has rendered her mute, her everyday routine is set like clockwork, waiting for the time she boards the bus to take her to her custodial job on the graveyard shift at a high security government research center. The only person there with whom she can communicate (via sign language) is her colleague Zelda Fuller (Spencer), and, over the years, they have grown to have a strong bond.
But their lives change one night when when a new specimen, something that is being called “The Asset” (Doug Jones) is wheeled in by Richard Strickland (Michael Shannon), a military man in charge of what is being called the “creature research” team. “The Asset,” a half-human/half-fish that was captured in a South American river, soon proves himself to be a dangerous creature, lashing out at Strickland, slicing two of his fingers off.
However, for some reason, Eliza shows no fear. She raises her hand onto the creature’s glass tube, and he eventually mirrors it (pictured above). When The Asset is deemed safe enough to swim in an open tank, Eliza shares hard-boiled eggs with him and soon begins to realize that they have much in common — neither one can speak but can hear, and both feel that they are isolated creatures. An improbable attraction soon grows between them.
But there are Russkies afoot, and even a mole (Michael Stuhlbarg) within the agency, so Eliza quickly fears for The Asset’s life. She returns to her shabby apartment, which is located above a Baltimore movie palace (currently playing a double bill of a Biblical epic and a Pat Boone musical — remember, it was 1962) to contact her best friend across the hall, Giles (Jenkins), a closeted gay man who watches old musicals with Eliza on TV after she gets off work, just before he puts on his toupee (no judging — I just said it was 1962!) to flirt with a waiter at a nearby pie shop. However, her quest today is to ask Giles to help her save the life of her beloved creature before he is killed.
This is the point where “The Shape of Water” takes a turn for the worse. At this plot point, my heart sank — until this moment, the film had been an imaginative dream with its mix of genres — but Eliza’s plan to bring the creature to safety is pure caper-by-the-numbers. While it still works plot-wise — it’s Guillermo del Toro, after all — the end of Act 2 began to feel…a little ordinary.
However (and spoilers end here), Act 3 roars back to life with an ending that is as unexpected as it is breathtaking.
Hawkins is extraordinary as Eliza, saying nothing but speaking volumes. (The Best Actress Oscar race among Hawkins, Saoirse Ronan and Frances McDormand is going to be fierce.) Jenkins is heartbreaking as Giles, and Spencer adds yet another memorable supporting turn to her impressive gallery of performances. At first, Shannon as a hard-ass military guy seemed like a too on-the-nose casting for me, but as he begins to break down Strickland’s fears and vulnerabilities, I came to appreciate once again just what a skilled actor he can be.
But “The Shape of Water” is del Toro’s show from beginning to end. As you begin to see the film unfold, you think you know what the film is going to be, then it isn’t. Then you know, then you don’t. Are there very many 2017 films about which you could say that?
GRADE: A-
