THE SHAPE OF WATER

VISUALLY ASTOUNDING 

Film Review by FIORE

Guillermo Del Toro makes visually extravagant movies.  His latest, THE SHAPE OF WATER is no exception.  It is being heralded among the minion condescending critics in the two letter cities as his greatest work.  It is not.  PAN’S LABYRINTH is still Del Toro’s piece d’resistance.  Still, THE SHAPE OF WATER has much to offer.

Michael Shannon is excellent.  It is difficult to find a film where Shannon does not shine.  His portrayal of a hard-nosed meticulous rule leader is engrossing.  Alexander Desplat offers an engaging score.  He is one of Tinsel Town’s premiere composers, and he is in top form here.  But the true star of the show is Cinematographer Dan Laustsen.  THE SHAPE OF WATER looks beautiful.  While most of the film is shoot in subdued light, the colors are vibrant, and Laustsen’s framing is textbook perfect.

THE SHAPE OF WATER is an adult fairy tale that reads on familiar ground.  A gill man, played by Doug Jones, is captured off a tributary of the Amazon River.  He is brought to a military lab, with the hope that the creature’s unique two different breathing systems can aide America’s space program.  Shannon, as the operation commander, treats the gill man as an animal, to be experimented on, and then eventually vivisected. 

Sally Hawkins plays one of the labs cleaning women.  She discovers the gill man is intelligent, and capable of communications.  To save the creature from the autopsy table, she and fellow maid Octavia Spencer, purloin the gill man to spare his life and return him to the sea.  It’s like the theme reverse of Universal’s THE CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON.

THE SHAPE OF WATER has glaring flaws.  The story, which offers nothing new of films of this ilk, is quite predictable.  Despite the obvious plot points, Editor Sidney Wolinsky stretches each sequence to unbearable lengths.  The film plods along, moseying, like an old man at the mall.  In addition to borrowing from THE CREATURE,  THE SHAPE OF WATER  also appropriates from Tom Hank’s SPLASH, so the entire movie has a been-there, seen-that mien. Jones’ gill man is nearly a carbon copy of Abe, his gill man character in Del Toro’s HELLBOY series.  There are tweaks to the costume and make-up, most notably warning frills like the Dilophosaurus in JURASSIC PARK, but basically, it’s the same creature.

Why then, is so much praise being lauded on THE SHAPE OF WATER?  Perhaps more comfortable with the Hollywood ideology, Del Toro fills his story with all its current cause celebres.  It is a virtual carnival of diversity and political commentary.  The main characters are handicapped, homosexual, supportive of cross-species coitus and racially harmonious, given the time period.  There is strong anti-government and anti-military sentiment; and of course, collusion with the Russians.  These are all themes the pandering propaganda purveyors bathe in, so it is no surprise the film is garnering accolades.

Any knowledgeable viewer will be frustrated with the film’s unfolding and readily discern the movie’s messages.  Still, THE SHAPE OF WATER is worth a view, for the stellar performance of Shannon and the stunning visuals of Laustsen. 

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