The fawning over Guillermo Del Toro by a lot of film fans has always baffled me. Maybe it is the fantasy tinged elements to his films that don’t sit that well with me, but, truth be told, prior to The Shape of Water my favourite film of his was the schlocky creature feature, Mimic. This latest from him is bound for Oscars glory and it very nearly converts me to being a fan.
Sally Hawkins is Eliza, a mute cleaner, working with her friend Zelda (Octavia Spencer) in some sort of underground government research facility in the early 1960s. When a strange aquatic creature is brought to the site, she forms a bond with it, and when the man in charge of security, Mr Strickland (Michael Shannon) plans to kill the creature she decides to break it out and take it home.
The first thing to say is that the movie looks and sounds incredible, thanks to the production design from Paul D. Austerberry, Dan Lustsen’s cinematography, and Alexandre Desplat’s lush romantic score. The world they create with Del Toro is stunning, capturing a particular time and place superbly. The decline of cinema and the increasing ubiquity of television, the burgeoning space-race, the increasing tensions between the US and the Soviet Union, and the undercurrent of intolerance are all touched on really well.
The story up-to-and-including the rescue of the creature is compelling, in turns dramatic, funny and tense. Hawkins is brilliant in her almost totally wordless performance with Spencer giving solid support. Richard Jenkins as her gay neighbour is also fantastic, and I, personally found their relationship more touching than the one that Eliza has with the amphibian man. Once he is ensconced in Eliza’s apartment, the film begins to flag.
Del Toro really begins to over-egg things, and I found it increasingly hard to suspend my disbelief and go with the story. Shannon’s villain had always been one dimensional, although fun to start with, and he becomes too over-the-top in his wickedness and relentless pursuit of the escapee as the film reaches its ending.
As a sumptuous plea for acceptance, whether that is for people of colour, different sexual orientations, people with disabilities, or even non-humans, this works incredibly well for the first two-thirds of the film. It fails, for me, to become the masterpiece some people are claiming because of the increasingly silly final act that culminates in a climax that lacks the tension it should have because of Del Toro’s narrative choices earlier.
Rating: 8 out of 10