The Shape of Water is a delightful love story that doesn’t take on the facade of your regular Hollywood couple. It’s about deception, romance, and the pure joyfulness of being human. In this case the love story is between a mute cleaning lady named Elisa (Sally Hawkins) and an Amazonian river monster who is performed by veteran mime and actor Doug Jones. Jones flawlessly gives one of his best performances without saying a word as does Hawkins. This might be one of those films where the two leads don’t speak to each other and their only form of communication is sign. It’s quite a miraculous method of communication within a monster movie.
Guillermo del Torro loves monsters and puts that into visual evidence with this latest film of his. He definitely puts thought into how he wants to portray the monster from the view of the audience, the view of the federal government, and the view of Elisa. This film’s direction reminded me of “The Frog Prince” (1988) with Helen Hunt as a step sister. Del Torro focuses heavy of prejudices in his story, which I thought was a little too hard over the head, but I don’t think he wanted to be subtle with the content. This movie is filled with acts of prejudice, so I guess del Torro didn’t want to be discriminatory against anyone. All have equal acts of bigotry against them. But the one who gets the blunt end of it all is indeed the river god.
My last item with this movie that blows me away is Alexadre Desplat’s score. It’s a mix of 1940’s film noir, a French love story, and a symphony all playing under water. Their are beautiful melodies that I can’t help but smile to. Everything about the score makes sense of what the feeling is for this movie. It helps me feel what I need to feel and think what I need to think. Desplat is one of my favorite composers working today. Too bad he couldn’t work on “Rogue One” (2016). That would’ve been neat. Anyway, I really like this movie and deserves a lot of praise for the risks it took to make a monster/woman love story happen on screen.
Sally Hawkins (L) and Doug Jones (R) in “The Shape of Water”
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