Shape of Water, The (2017) [Blu-ray]
Adventure | Drama | Fantasy | Horror | Romance | Thriller

Tagline: Based on an idea by Daniel Kraus And Guillermo del Toro

At a top secret research facility in the 1960s, a lonely janitor forms a unique relationship with an amphibious creature that is being held in captivity.

Storyline: From master storyteller Guillermo del Toro comes THE SHAPE OF WATER, an otherworldly fable set against the backdrop of Cold War era America circa 1962. In the hidden high-security government laboratory where she works, lonely Elisa (Sally Hawkins) is trapped in a life of isolation. Elisa's life is changed forever when she and co-worker Zelda (Octavia Spencer) discover a secret classified experiment. Rounding out the cast are Michael Shannon, Richard Jenkins, Michael Stuhlbarg, and Doug Jones. Written by Fox Searchlight Pictures

Reviewer's Note: Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman, March 15, 2018 While it may not be their ostensible "calling card", any number of iconic horror and/or monster movies are in essence love stories. Think about it for a minute: The Phantom of the Opera had Christine; Dracula had all sorts of women, including Mina and Lucy; Frankenstein's monster had his ostensible bride; The Wolf Man pined (howled?) for Gwen; and King Kong's desire for Ann leads to the unforgettable closing lines of the film that "it was beauty who killed the beast", certainly a bittersweet epitaph for any kind of star crossed love affair (yes, that's a joke). That very reference to Beauty and the Beast is especially salient with regard to 1954's Creature from the Black Lagoon 3D , since that film's producer William Alland is on record as stating that the original folk tale that went on to inspire a number of films had in fact also sparked his initial idea for an amphibian creature who becomes besotted with a human female. Inspiration is an obviously ephemeral thing, but it's surprisingly hardy, as evidenced by the fact that Guillermo del Toro has cited Creature from the Black Lagoon as having sparked what ultimately became The Shape of Water, a film which in one way can almost be thought of as one of those post-modernist reboots of a venerable horror enterprise. Thankfully, though, this film is no Victor Frankenstein or Dracula Untold, and del Toro's almost patented blend of fantasy and history unfolds rather magically throughout this incredibly unique and satisfying viewing experience. It's a love story, to be sure, but it's quite unlike any other love story you've probably ever seen, whether or not that tale has been cloaked in the guise of a so-called monster movie.

The same magical realism that brought Franco's Spain so vividly to life in The Devil's Backbone and Pan's Labyrinth is put to superb use in The Shape of Water, albeit aimed at an early sixties United States where everything from Jell-o to Cadillacs augurs a bright, happy future, especially for "normal" (meaning straight and white) males. If the perceived paradigm in this "reality" is a serene suburban life with a spouse and kids, there's another "reality" that the film dwells in for much of its running time: a dowdy (but fascinatingly so, due to the film's incredible production design) urban environment in a neighborhood that has probably seen its best days long ago. Above a movie theater which is kind oddly playing The Story of Ruth (more about that in a moment), a mute (but not deaf) woman named Elisa Esposito (Sally Hawkins, Academy Award nominated for this performance) lives in an apartment that would have been quite at home (so to speak) in Dark City. Elisa has a seemingly unbreakable morning routine which involves making hard boiled eggs, checking her calendar and (in just one of this film's kind of cheeky asides) pleasuring herself sexually.

Elisa's routine also involves getting to work at the Occam Institute (more about that in a moment) just in the brink of time, usually being upbraided by her sweet if no nonsense co-worker Zelda (Octavia Spencer, Academy Award nominated for this performance). Elisa and Zelda are part of the cleaning staff (they evidently seem to be the entire cleaning staff) at this remote top secret facility that has no defined purpose within the context of the film, other than that it becomes home for a really top secret "asset", which turns out to be this film's Creature (Doug Jones). This so-called Amphibian Man has been wrested from his native waters in South America and brought to this concrete prison by a martinet military guy named Colonel Richard Strickland (Michael Shannon, who should have been Academy Award nominated for this performance). Strickland is a hard nosed type who thinks the Creature is obviously subhuman, but who also believes that the Creature's anatomy may give the United States a leg up on the Soviets for the then nascent space race (this particular element may not be the most convincing in a film already flirting pretty deliberately with suspension of disbelief).

The mute Elisa manages to make a connection with the Creature, and they begin a halting "relationship" built largely around Elisa providing the Creature with hard boiled eggs, as well as introducing him to the blandishments of recorded music. Meanwhile, Strickland is arguing to his higher ups that the only way to get the goods on what the Creature may be able to provide is to kill him and dissect him, something that pushes Elisa to take some desperate measures which involve her, Zelda, and Elisa's gay advertising illustrator neighbor Giles (Richard Jenkins, Academy Award nominated for this performance). Another subplot involves a scientist at the Occam Institute, Dr. Robert Hoffstetler (Michael Stuhlbarg), who, unlike Strickland, is arguing rather vociferously for saving the Creature, albeit perhaps not for completely noble reasons, since it's revealed he's actually a double agent working for the Soviets.

Even this brief summary probably already might raise some eyebrows from film fans unaccustomed to such a provocative set of characters and plot elements. But del Toro, never one to suffer from restraint, goes for the gusto in any number of ways in terms of both subtext and presentation. The film is a near hallucinatory experience at times, filled with sickly greens and yellows and of course focusing fairly relentlessly on water imagery. But del Toro also invests the tale with several quasi-musical or (in one case) outright musical elements, another stylistic conceit that could have easily tanked (no pun intended, considering where the Creature is kept for much of the film) with a less skilled director. A number of other elements are flat out bizarre, but always tailored to one of the film's central messages, namely "who exactly are the 'freaks' in this story?". That comes into play not just with regard to the mute Elisa and her love for an amphibian, but also with regard to Giles, who has a crush on a (male) neighborhood pie shop employee, or even with regard to the supposedly "normal" Strickland, whose sexual tastes are decidedly on the kinky side. The whole Cold War ambience is played fairly comedically at times, largely with regard to Hoffstetler's subplot.

The film often ping pongs back and forth between comedy and pathos, and kind of incredibly manages to do so without losing control of the tonal rudder. There are some throwaway gags here, as in a close-up of Zelda dusting some object in the Occam Institute, which, once the camera pulls back, turns out to be an absolutely mutant sized turbine of some kind, one whose surface area is so improbably large (and unreachable) that her cleaning efforts are obviously absurd. Other sequences, as in the almost Keystone Kops-esque scene where Elisa facilitates the Creature's escape from the Occam Institute, have outright slapstick tendencies mixed with considerable, near Hitchcockian, tension. There's no doubt that the bad guys in this piece are played like cartoons, but at least in the case of Strickland, they're kind of scary cartoons.

There are some oddities afoot (webbed or otherwise) here, though. That aforementioned use of The Story of Ruth seems a little odd, since the story doesn't exactly involve content that seems genuinely linked to the proceedings, unless one accepts the Jews in the tale as "freaks" of some sort. And what of the Occam Institute? "Occam's razor" of course postulates that the "simplest" answer to any conundrum is probably the right one, which seems a bit more on point with regard to elements like Strickland's dismissal of South American natives feeling that the Creature was some kind of Divine Being (guess how that one turns out). But of course it can be argued that nothing is ever totally "simple" in a del Toro film. (For one salient example, pay attention to a superb "reveal" in the closing moments of the film regarding scars on Elisa, and then ponder what the denouement may suggest about her parentage.) What The Shape of Water makes so devastatingly clear is that del Toro can tell an elaborate tale with the wide eyed wonder of a child. The result for this particular viewer was "simply" moviemaking magic.

If you see only one film about a mute cleaning woman in love with an amphibian this year, I must insist you make it The Shape of Water. That, of course, is said with tongue planted firmly in cheek, but this is a rare film that dares to be almost willfully different, but which still manages to connect inerrantly with its audience on both intellectual and emotional levels. Fox has offered another disc with top flight technical merits, and it's probably no great surprise that The Shape of Water comes Highly recommended.

[CSW] -2.4- I liked and disliked this movie, to wit. How could they let this interesting film devolve so badly? It's way too long, too repetitive, and squanders too many opportunities. Get back in the editing booth, Guillermo, and don't come out until you've shortened this film by 25 minutes! (***Spoiler Alert ***) At the height of the U.S.-Soviet space race, the U.S. naturally sends its biggest creep to South America to kidnap the King of the Sea Monkeys. You see, the Sea Monkey King has both gills and lungs and therefore holds the secret to... space travel??? The Sea Monkey King is befriended by a mute cleaning woman whose scars are the result of an unexplained vocal-cord-severing incident that occurred when she was an infant, that for some reason required six parallel incisions, three on either side of her neck, and that isn't worth mentioning except to stop anyone from wondering if they're gills. (***End Spoiler Alert ***) But don't let me spoil this much too long but magical fairytale, a different take on the beauty and the beast story of "forbidden" love conquers all. This movie is magical, artistic and so creative. It is also a romantic musical science fiction drama. With this mixture of mixed genres you could match up selective cuts to make three totally different movies, and I think I would like each on its own. But you really have to mix sweet, salty, and sour with an outstandingly solid plot to make it palatable. This plot was just not that outstanding.
[V5.0-A4.5] MPEG-4 AVC - No D-Box


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