The Shape of Water

(Guillermo del Toro/2017/USA)

A romantic fantasy wrapped up in cold war espionage and military secrets The Shape of Water left me a bit cold. Guillermo del Toro does his best to warm your heart but there’s not enough substance to it. Styled very much in the vein of Jeunet et Caro’s Delicatessen the mood and feel of the film leans to the quirky and surreal and sets you up for the weirdness to come. Sally Hawkins is excellent as Elisa, a master class in exuding emotion without uttering a word. Elisa is mute and we are brought into her world most wonderfully in the first ten to twenty minutes of the movie. However once the plot begins to turn around the mysterious “Asset” that arrives at the military base where Elisa works as a cleaner, things begin the get a bit flakey.

I have no problem with the fantastical, I can readily accept the introduction of a merman into a story and the aspect of non verbal communication, acceptance and love that flourishes between Elisa and Mr. Fish has wider connotations for today’s world but there are questions that kept popping into my head. What would The Shape of Water be like if the fish man character was, say, a Russian spy? Would there be as much fuss about it as a storyline? No, obviously, but this leads me to believe that the creation of the character as a fish is more about being weird for weird’s sake. Ok a merman more readily represents “the other” than a boring old Russian spy but there's a clumsiness to The Shape of Water too. I can’t believe a cleaning lady could manage to siphon the time and access required to develop the relationship we see on screen or the fact that one security camera being put out of action enables an escape route from a military facility. There’s too many drop outs in story logic and they held me back from running with the fantasy of everything else. Del Toro is an excellent film maker but this is a poor outing by his standards in my opinion. It's derivative in style and a bit hokey in execution but I'll give it this much, it's the best movie about falling in love with a fish I've seen in a long time.

(2/5)