The Shape of Water Review

The Shape of Water is a movie that is almost impossible to review objectively because the entire reason for its existence is based on a deeply held set of socio-political ideologies designed to appeal to those who share these beliefs and alienate everybody else. Thus, no matter how I review this I'm going to end up pissing off half of you because I do actually need to give my opinion.



If you haven't heard about this one or just didn't watch the Oscars (which at this point is understandable) The Shape of Water is about a mute janitor named Elisa (Sally Hawkins) working at a laboratory in 1960s America where the scientists and military have just captured a fish monster that they believe will help them in the Cold War. However, Elisa begins to form an attachment to the character to the point where she falls in deep, and explicitly consummated, love with it.



Let's get the good out of the way first: it's a Guillermo Del Toro film so it's not only aesthetically pleasing but is a genuine work of craftsman filmmaking that uses the unique medium of film to tell the story in a visual way. The actors all give fantastic performances with the standout probably being Hawkins who has to play a mute character with her expressions and body language alone. All of the other character actor big hitters like Michael Shannon, Octavia Spencer, Michael Stuhlbarg and Richard Jenkins all do great work as well. Del Toro mainstay Doug Jones has the role of the fish man and while he doesn't get to portray a lot of expression through layers of prosthetics and CGI, he's still a really good physical actor, giving the monster a real sense of presence and its own distinct movements and physical tics. The period set and costume design are all fantastic, creating a lived-in world that drops you into a completely different era and the design of the monster itself is a fantastically rendered tribute to The Creature from the Black Lagoon.



So, the film is technically solid and visually extraordinary, so what's wrong with it? Pretty much everything on a narrative and thematic level.



The fundamental problem of the story seems to be that instead of beginning the conception of the plot with a ready-made cast of three-dimensional characters, Del Toro and co-writer Vanessa Taylor instead chose to use everything in the film to first and foremost serve a message they were trying to send about sexuality. The characters feel more like avatars used to push the film's agenda rather than actual people, as if the writers would rather have just made a feature-length presentation on sexual identity politics, but realized those don't make as much money as films do so grudgingly added "characters" to qualify it for showing in theaters. This is best exemplified in our heroine and villain for the piece; she's a "sexually liberated" female who has no problems with her roommate's homosexuality (despite the fact that this is set in the sixties and that was still considered gross by the majority of the US population) under the oppressive boot of our villain who is a white, straight, obnoxiously patriotic, middle-class male who uses Bible verses to justify his cruelty. She's designed to be what the writers see as the perfect person, he's designed to be the scum of the Earth and neither of them have any dimension or further depth whatsoever.



The other characters aren't any better; Octavia Spencer is just the sassy black woman who don't take none of yo' sass and Richard Jenkins' gay character feels like he's there just so they could have a gay character (like you could cut him out of the film and while you would be lacking the always welcome presence of Richard Jenkins it would take away nothing from the plot). They also submit to the same "committed to the agenda" virus that infected the two main characters in that they don't react realistically to the monster. If you found out that your friend was regularly sleeping with a mutant fish monster would you be really be fully accepting of that, just laugh it off and think "Oh, how quirky and admiringly rebellious my friend is"? No, of course you wouldn't! You'd freak out and maybe not look at your friend the same for the rest of your lives. But these characters do that, because in Del Toro's mind relatable characters have to be sacrificed in the name of sending a message.



The worst character in the whole debacle is also the one that causes the most problems for the film's theme: the fish monster himself. Throughout the film it tries to get the audience to believe that the creature has a soul and is capable of human emotion, thereby completing the film's theme of socially weird love and helping us get invested in the romance. Now, this can actually work: the original Beauty and the Beast managed to get its audience invested in the romance between a beautiful woman and an ugly monster, so why can't this movie? Because in Beauty and the Beast they actually gave their monster personality to make him likable; the monster in Shape of Water has no personality at all. In fact, there's no evidence that it even has a soul as the film implies; it behaves more like an animal, acting on instinct, latching on to the one sentient thing that feeds him and blankly staring into space, not interacting with the human characters in any meaningful way. Thus, the chemistry between Eliza and the monster has all the raw, hot sex appeal of watching somebody bone a mannequin. There's no evidence that the monster is even into it or has the capacity for romantic love; for all I know the only reason it's boning her is because it was led along. It seems so intentionally cold and weird that put into a different context it could've been used for a much darker movie about insanity or off-limits sexual exploits.



While "oppressed" sexual groups is the obvious theme the film tries to push, I believe that there is one other, more subtle message that will hit the hardest, but be noticed the least. (SPOILERS!) Throughout the film it is revealed that the monster can heal people by touching them, regrowing Richard Jenkins' hair and giving Elisa gills at the end of the film. And at the end of the film, the monster is face to face with Michael Shannon's character and rather than showing that he has actual humanity or capacity for mercy by healing his amputated fingers the monster instead slits his throat. Now, granted Shannon's character had a gun pointed at them, but remember that this film is much more concerned with symbolism than narrative and take a look at this scene again. We have Michael Shannon's character, a caricature of right-wing conservatism, facing off against Eliza and her love interest, who the film posits as the incarnations of perfect ideals, and instead of changing his heart of showing mercy in the face of his cruelty, the main characters kill the right-winger. This basically sends the message that "Hey, lefties, if you ever encounter a right-winger that is obnoxious, doesn't agree with you or is legitimately hateful, the solution isn't to be compassionate, tolerant or understanding, finding common ground and establishing communication. The solution is aggression and, if necessary, brute force."



The Shape of Water is the most depressing movie I've ever had the displeasure to dislike; it's like if a sculptor I respected decided to use his talents to chisel a graphic orgy scene in the middle of town square. And while it's a well crafted sculpture, it's still a depiction of an orgy. I'm not sure if I can ultimately recommend this film to anybody. If you agree with the film's ideology, it's only going to make you more critical and hostile towards the other side of the isle. If you disagree with it and see this as more of a smack in the face to your beliefs as I did, it's just going to make you more bitter to the other side of the aisle. Thus, and it pains me to say this about such a well-made, beautifully crafted film, I recommend skipping this one.