#also i gave toro a later suit. for fun

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The Shape of Water (2017) Review

The Shape of Water (2017)

Review Date 3/15/18 “When he looks at me, the way he looks at me... He does not know, what I lack... Or - how - I am incomplete. He sees me, for what I - am, as I am. He's happy - to see me. Every time. Every day. Now, I can either save him... or let him die.” Many people have or will come away believing this film is solely about a woman falling in love with a fish-man. Oh, how wrong they are. Guillermo del Toro has created yet another beautiful masterpiece. Premise: Set in the early 1960’s, a mute night janitor at a top-secret research facility forms a bond with an amphibious man-like creature. The film tells how people only see what is on the surface, not what is underneath. Our main protagonists are a mute woman who everyone thinks is mentally handicapped, and African American housewife, a closeted gay man,..and a fish guy. This is set during a time of intense racism and misunderstanding. We’re still suffering from those same things today. It shows one of humanity’s greatest faults; the failure to come together because of our differences and our refusal to try and understand. Like its fellow Academy Awards Best Picture nominee; ‘Get Out’, The Shape of Water is a social commentary. I think most of the same people that liked Get Out will enjoy this as both films aren’t that ‘turn-your-brain-off- and- enjoy' type of experience. The film is considered a horror, as it shows at times the cruelty of man. We’re the monsters in this film. People have said that the film promotes bestiality. I’ve heard that a lot. A little side note is that the film does kind of make fun of these people but making to where they don’t know it. I don’t remember hearing that (much) about Beauty and the Beast, which is what this film essentially is. I wouldn’t call it a rip-off as I see Beauty and the Beast as a template. There are a few scenes where Elise and the Amphibian Man are ‘together’ but they are all artistically done. There’s even a very ingenious one that is arguably one of the best shots of the film. Doug Jones and Sally Hawkins are fantastic together. Their characters communicate with each other through body language. To be honest, every actor and actress is fantastic when paired with another. I loved the relationships between the main character Elise and her friends Giles and Zelda. Jenkins and Spencer were rightly nominated for their performances. Elise completely understands them, and they completely understand her. Along with the creature, they all form this little circle that supports each other as all of the main characters are victims in some fashion or another. Some which are very on the nose, some which are not. The characters are among the most fleshed out I’ve seen in recent memory. There are many subtle gestures and actions they do that allude to a certain trait never shown but letting the audience know about them. They’re ostracized in some way and there are scenes depicting their struggles. Even our antagonist; Strickland, while outside the circle is somewhat a victim, in my opinion, is given a thorough backstory. He has a loving wife (also a victim here) and two children. He’s a sadist at times but there are also times when he’s shown to still be human. His life is also in danger and he’s doing what he thinks is right and if he screws up, he’ll be killed for it. I have asked this just about every time I find out Jones portrayed a creature or monster in a film; Where’s his Oscar nod?! The man uses his body to act and many times despite not having a line, he outshines the actors that do. I hate even mentioning this movie because it was so terrible, but he was even good in The Bye Bye Man. Yes, he’s had speaking roles in a number of movies; Hellboy 2 (David Hyde Pierce provided the voice of Abe Sapien in the first one but gave it to Jones in the second one), Falling Skies, and Star Trek: Discovery just to name a few. I’ve always been a sucker for practical effects. Humanoid CGI monsters for the most part just don’t do it for me in most cases. I like for there to be a living person in that suit, on set, interacting with the actors. You don’t get the same emotion from them when you just have a ball on a stick or a guy in a suit with dots to later be generated over. That’s why I loved the original Alien movies. Alien: Covenant disappointed me in this area. Sure, there are some shots that can’t be done with a guy in a suit and that’s fine. Covenant did use the guy in a suit thing, but it didn’t do it that often, so a lot of the shots looked a bit cheap and cartoony. It’s easier nowadays to do something like that on a computer. I’m not saying there isn’t a craft to it, but I think it requires more effort and time to create an amazing costume. Gollum from Lord of the Rings trilogy, the Na’vi in Avatar and a few others get a pass as there was just no way for an actor to wear such a costume. Those two films along with District 9 blew me away with their effects. Here in this film, that’s Doug Jones in roughly 90% of the scenes the creature is in. Again, there are some shots in the movie that would be impossible to do but for the most part, you’re seeing this beautifully and intricately designed suit. I felt like what I what was seeing was a living, breathing thing. Like the first couple of the Alien films, you feel the creatures’ presence. In the live action version of Beauty and the Beast, I didn’t feel that with the Beast. Again, the CGI just looked cheap to me. But here, it’s absolutely amazing. The creature’s first full reveal isn’t portrayed as shocking as in most movies involving monsters. There’s a strange normalcy to it. Elise isn’t scared. She’s curious just as the creature is to her Now yes, the first time the audience is slightly introduced to him a few scenes before this is somewhat of a jump scene. I’ve always loved del Toro’s dark fantasy atmosphere. Many of his films show a seemingly normal world with much more going on than humanity realizes. He’s said he’s been very inspired by the works of H.P. Lovecraft. One of the biggest things he borrows from the author is that there are simply things out there that humanity is not meant to understand. It is stated that the creature came from the Amazon (a clear homage to one of del Toro’s favorite films, The Creature from the Black Lagoon) but there’s another fantastical element present in the film that I won’t spoil, although telling you that kind of spoils it itself. The opening shot shows that del Toro should be the only choice to direct the film adaptation of the video game Bioshock. There are parts of the film where it does feel like you’re playing the game, wandering through the underwater city of Rapture. Heck, if I were to flip channels and come across this movie at the right time, I probably would think I was watching said adaptation. Paul D. Austerberry, Jeffery A. Melvin, Shane Vieau rightfully won the Academy Award for Best Production Design and I’d love to see them work on the adaptation as well. Something that I’ve always noticed in del Toro’s films (one of his motifs if you will) is that there is often a short burst of unexpected graphic violence here and there. But the thing about this is that in his films is that it’s meant to drive a point across. Not trying to nitpick here, but no one in this top-secret research facility noticed the janitor opening a coded entry, vault-like door and having lunch with something that is obviously…well ‘top secret’? No one thought of having a guard posted there 24/7? I let a lot of things slide and even I’ll let this as well, but I just wanted to point that out. If there were a guard or didn’t let the janitors in there, there would be no movie. There are a few times where the film’s minor faults are shown. The writing is amazing but every now and then there will be a line or plot aspect that just seems a bit lazy. Again, they’re very minor and miniscule to the rest of the film, but a keen observer will be able to spot them. It does drift into the realm of cliché here and there, but I sort of expected that. Some of them are clearly homages to classic monster movies though. Still, we have seen the ‘tortured-creature-befriended-by-a-kindhearted- human’ shtick’ more than enough times. Before concluding, I must explicitly state that the film has nothing to do with del Toro’s film adaptation of Hellboy. The Amphibian Man is in no way related to Abe Sapien despite their many similarities. Some have suggested that Abe is the son of the Amphibian Man and Elise. This cannot be true. In the graphic novels, Abe was a human scientist in the Victorian Era born Langdon Everett Caul. He was transformed into the creature due to an arcane ritual gone wrong. In conclusion, yes there are a lot of people who see this movie as promoting bestiality. As I said before, it makes fun of them for only seeing what’s on the surface, when there’s a much deeper meaning behind it. It is as if the film is saying; “Hey, you’re part of the problem that is discussed here. You’re the whole reason why this movie was made! But you fail to see it.” That’s what I found most amusing about this film after watching it. These people fail to see the beauty underneath. For those that do explore the film’s depths, they’ll find true beauty. Score: 8.8/10