How The Shape Of Water End Up Like A Good Movie Not A Great One

When I saw the trailer half a year ago, the first impression comes to me as a reminiscent of Ichthyander and his struggle to lead a free life with all of the strangeness he bears. Do you recall the name?

I’m talking about Russian author Alexander Belyaev’s 1928 science fiction Amphibian Man; its hero who is the experimental success of an Argentine scientist. Ichthyander can breathe under the water also walks along the streets. The central theme of the novel deals with the battle between humankind’s longing for freedom as well as the threats it possesses to it’s kind, to destroy the beauty of life and love.

Sounds familiar? If not, keep patience, my friend.

Shape Of Water, Guillermo Del Toro’s latest directorial feature is a movie not only dazzle the critics (don’t want to mention the Oscar-winning though) this year but also make a lot of money (191 million and more with a tiny budget of 19.5 million).

What distinguished its significance from even other Del Toro’s flick? Where we already have Pan’s Labyrinth (2006) or Crimson Peak (2015, my favorite one).

I watched the movie in the digital format some days ago. Try to get it following my expectation: is this weird fantasy tale worth that much importance everyone’s putting on it?

Let’s bring a mug full of cappuccino.

The movie takes us at the age of the cold war. Soviet Russia and the US were in a race to outpacing each other by the technology, biology or weapon and what’s not?

It follows the days and nights of Elisa Esposito; a mute woman works in a secret research laboratory as a cleaner. We get to know about an aging painter Giles, Elisa’s neighbor who paints movie posters and failing every day because the cinema hall has started to use photographic posters instead.

One day while cleaning the floor, Elisa and her colleague Zelda watch that a creature arrives in a water tank. An amphibian has been caught from a South American river. We quickly discover that Elisa develops a friendship with the creature. She plays music, dances, sharing eggs and communicate by various signs with it, and gradually the amphibian becomes him not it (you know).

We get to know about Colonel Strickland, an army officer, now the security in-charge of the lab and the asset (that’s what they called him, see, I’m starting to call it as Him) also. Apparently, Strickland is a despicable rough guy who knows nothing but keeps his responsibilities on. Tortures the amphibian man, and ends up to get the US Army General Hoyt’s permission to vivisect him for space research.

That strikes Elisa as life-threatening. She plans to get free the amphibian man with the help of her neighbor Giles, colleague Zelda and the lab scientist Dr. Hoffstetler. Well, who is Dr. Hoffsteller? A man with a bad motto but also a humanitarian heart.

Then what happens? A lot of things happen, I assure you.

A journey of love and loss we experience. Love, it works here just amazing. At least Del Toro tried to do it amazingly. But also, despite being the central theme of the movie, sometimes it seems to take the hard labor of mind to feel it. From my point of view, the bond between the amphibian man and Elisa develops needs a bit more way of explanation or directorial scrutiny.

I want to discuss the most remarkable character in the film, Colonel Strickland. He maintains a glorious military career and planning to lead a peaceful life with the fortune he makes. Strickland has two beautiful children and a hot blond wife. He loves the children and fucks his wife so hard as he wants to fuck every obstacle that not let him get what he desires. Killing the amphibian man become Strickland’s only vendetta. Because, Elisa able to make it, diffusing the security system and rescue her love to home. That’s put Strickland on a dilemma, either he must find the lost asset or Let General Hoyt’s remove his existence from the history.

Now that the key storyline is pointed out, you can leap ahead on some critical commentary. Don’t you?

One particular attainment for which the movie stands a few more scores. It’s clever focus on the despair Giles plunges in with his sexual existence, no one there understands his homosexuality. And, the black people were still suffering the lash of racism at that time.

The greatest thing in the movie is its music. It is capable of making you fly to a time where melancholia and loneliness create the land of immortality. Alexandre Desplat owns a bow; there’s nothing much I can say for him. Sally Hawkins deserves more recognition of what she has done with the role of Elisa Esposito; a simple word may work here, “enchanting.” Michael Shannon, how can I define his performance? You can find him nailing one of the devilish characters of the film history so perfectly.

Who is the real monster?

Well, you can find that easily. It is Del Toro's most personal philosophy he tends to deal in his career. He does nothing new here that he didn’t try on his earlier features. Though, I think the film is successful for what it’s intended to express. Not in a great way but in a very good way. But I can’t be able to acknowledge that the director surpasses his previous achievements with this film.

The movie takes its inspiration from 1954’s Creature from the black lagoon (Gill-man). Though our hero is handsome in a sense! Del Toro has a fascination with insecticides and monsters (you know that if you are a fan like me). But, to me, it’s more like the hero of Belayev’s novel we discussed already.

If you need the one sentence that recognizes this film, I made up my mind. The shape of water is a Free Willy flick with a romantic angle and in the form of a fairy tale.