The Shape Of Water

Smiley 1 February 2018

Something smells a bit fishy, and I have a sneaking suspicion that it’s the latest movie from Guillermo Del Toro: The Shape of Water.

Part romance, part B movie creature horror, the film centres around a young mute lady by the name of Elisa (Sally Hawkin’s – Submarine). Set in 1960s Baltimore, our heroine works as a cleaner in a heavily secure government facility with her friend Zelda (Octavia Spencer – Hidden Figures). One day, an unlikely relationship develops as Elisa finds herself drawn to an amphibious man/fish creature trapped in a tank. Witnessing the torture he endures daily, with no real ends-to-the-means, at the hands of sadistic supervisor (Michael Shannon – Nocturnal Animals), she decides to try to rescue her fisherman’s boyfriend. Will the creature see her black lagoon, or end up on the hook?

It’s clear from the start that this is a film wearing the mask of another film. For example, the opening scene is that of our central protagonist’s sepia-edged journey home from work in her simple-yet-happy life, to her modest-yet-cosy home, where she boils some eggs, and runs a bath – which she then proceeds to vigorously wank in! All legs-spread an’ that. And that’s what makes it brilliant. It’s like a Roald Dahl story that somehow ended up on the desk of Nicholas Winding Refn. Charlie and the Secret CIA Facility, or Danny, the Champion of the Severed Fingers. This “dark-kids-movie-with-something-in-it-for-adults” territory has been ruled over by Sir Timothy of Burton for the last two and a bit decades, and it still is. Because whilst this is reminiscent of his work, it is actually almost completely the opposite. This is an adult’s movie that, by using tropes and cliché’s from kid’s movies, disarms and discombobulates you. It’s the same trick that Stranger Things thrives on.

So yeah, this is very much post-Burton fare, and something much more akin to Del Toro’s earlier (and better) works, such as Pan’s Labyrinth and The Devil’s Backbone. And thank fuck for that, because I started to lose hope around Pacific Rim o’clock that maybe he wasn’t the film maker that I had hoped he was. Well, he is, and this proves it. In the words of Sebastian the Crab, “Darling it’s better, where it is wetter, take it from me.”

8/10