THE SHAPE OF WATER

In 2017 the Academy awarded the Best Picture Oscar to a charming and beautiful love story. Co-written and directed by Guillermo del Toro, The Shape of Water is a fairy tale revealed to the audience through the recollection of Giles (Richard Jenkins). Giles is a close friend of Elisa Esposito (Sally Hawkins), the central character in the tale he is conveying.

The story takes place during the space race of the early 1960’s. Eliza, who is a mute, works as a cleaning person at a secret government laboratory. The laboratory houses a humanoid sea creature that the American government has captured and is studying, nay, torturing. Using non-verbal physical language and music, Eliza can begin communicating with the creature, unbeknownst to anyone else. After overhearing that the military has decided to vivisect the creature, Eliza convinces friend Giles and fellow custodian/friend Zelda (Octavia Spencer) to assist her with breaking “him” out of the facility. From there, the relationships between all of these characters are forever changed.

Sally Hawkins is magnificent as she conveys an immense amount of emotion, empathy, and passion solely through her physical movements and facial expressions. Worthy of note as well is Doug Jones, who plays the nonspeaking amphibian creature, though his expressiveness is assisted through CGI. Octavia Spencer is always fun as the feisty and defiant character she’s come to excel playing. Michael Shannon provides the right amount of male, and white privilege of the era and becomes more menacing as he embraces his religious zealotry. Richard Jenkins is wonderful as both the narrator and the gay man of the era trying to find a deeper connection. Finally, Michael Stuhlbarg as the scientist torn between two opposing allegiances and his conflicting scientific desire to respect life in all its forms was perfect.

There were a few times that some graphic unpleasantries seemed unnecessarily jarring given the overall tone of the story. But in fairness, many classic fairy tales have some pretty gruesome moments when you think about it. In the end, this is a movie where several individuals who have lived existences in which they have been denied a voice, in one way or another, all achieve one. And that is always an accomplishment worth celebrating.