The Shape of Water
Directed by Guillermo del Toro
Starring Sally Hawkins, Michael Shannon, Richard Jenkins
Rated R
Guillermo del Toro has earned his reputation as an immaculate filmmaking craftsman several times over, so his new movies stand as major events for audiences that appreciate the experience of being swept up in old-fashioned spectacle.
“The Shape of Water,” which plays like a monster movie made by Busby Berkeley, meets the lofty del Toro standard, thanks to expressions of pure cinematic style, which amplify the fantastical aura without discarding the focus on the characters’ real and tangible emotions.
Sally Hawkins stars as a mute woman named Elisa, who lives above a movie palace in Baltimore, circa 1962, and works as a cleaner at a government research lab. There, a mysterious water-bound creature called the Asset (Doug Jones), along with the tyrannical agent (Michael Shannon, in his usual mode with a hint of vulnerability) who captured him. The creature becomes the subject of a tug-of-war between the Americans and Soviets, while Elisa finally recognizes in him someone who understands the feelings of otherness that have defined her life.
When the movie really takes flight, it’s not because of the pinpoint mid-20th century production design. It’s not thanks to the seamless exploration of the water metaphor that defines the otherworldly love story here, which seeps into the marrow of this movie as the defining motif, in everything from the green-and-blue tinted lighting to the transitions between shots. It’s not the effortless incorporation of a classical musical number or the other welcome stylistic flourishes.
Hawkins sells it without a single line of spoken dialogue to rely upon, capturing the scope of Elisa’s epic journey within from lonely despair to hope and purpose, and filling every scene she’s in with the joy of loving, of feeling, for the first time.
