This week, Guillermo del Toro’s The Shape of Water led all films with 13 Academy Awards
nominations, making it the early favorite for Best Picture of 2017. Del Toro is
also heavily favored to win the Best Director Oscar, joining countrymen Alfonso
Cuarón (Gravity, 2014) and Alejandro Iñárittu
(Birdman, 2015 and The Revenant, 2016) as recent winners of
the coveted award.
Del Toro, who not only directed, but also created the story
and co-wrote the screenplay, seems to have developed The Shape of Water with Oscar in mind: it is an amalgam of every
Hollywood “how to win an Oscar” cliché short of bashing Nazis. It has the “lost
alien vs the military/ scientific/ industrial menace” theme; the “revenge against toxic masculinity, sexism, racism, ableism, and homophobia” theme; the “overcoming
disability to discover true love” and the “my disability is a symbol of a
social evil” themes; the “classic Hollywood movies as sacrament” theme; “the evil,
Bible-quoting Christian” villain; and the “all you need is love” crowd-pleasing,
fairy tale ending. Throw in some Mad Men 1960s-era cultural references for all
the Baby Boomer voters of the Academy, and voilà – you have the perfect Oscar
candidate.
Pardon me while I throw up. Some of my most revered film
critics adore this mess, but to me, The
Shape of Water is simply an over-the-top, silly, derivative fantasy about
the evils of toxic masculinity that insults literate viewers more than it inspires.
From the incredulous opening credit sequence (heavy, metal objects don’t stay suspended in water, they sink) and the ridiculous opening
bathtub scene to the E.T. meets The Little Mermaid (Feminist Fantasy
Version) predictable ending, the film doesn’t utilize fantasy as a tool to
expand our imagination (à
la magical realism); rather, it severs all ties to
reality and abuses fantasy for emotional manipulation and to score cheap
political points.
For the record, The
Shape of Water follows the plight of a Cold-War “asset” – a merman of sorts
(played in scaly costume by Doug Jones) discovered in the Amazon with dual respiratory
systems allowing him to live either on land or in water. He is brought to,
confined at, and later enchained in, a secret lab in Baltimore where Elisa (Sally
Hawkins) and Zelda (Octavia Spencer) are part of the custodial crew. Elisa is
unable to speak, having suffered some unknown childhood condition that has left
her with three parallel scars on either side of her neck, and no working vocal
cords. The military-national security complex views the asset through Cold War
eyes as a possible boon to space exploration (not really explained), and after
some pointless torture with a cattle-prod by security agent Richard Strickland
(cartoonishly played by Michael Shannon), the “brass” thinks it is more
valuable to them as a post-mortem research subject. Meanwhile, Elisa, whose
disability becomes an opportunity to communicate with the creature through sign
language and music, recognizes a kindred spirit, and less convincingly, an
object of love and desire. A semi-comic rescue sequence ensues, assisted by an
embedded Soviet spy, with the now-iconic E.T.
race to set the creature free. This is a Hollywood PC depiction of 1960s
America: awash in toxic masculinity, toxic religion, white supremacy, fascism,
and homophobia. The heroes are the women, gay men, minorities, and immigrants who
love without judgment and resist without fear, all inspired by the stories of
classic Hollywood either directly or by homage.
Del Toro is a student of film, and it shows. As a director
who specializes in blending fantasy, horror, and romance he has drawn from a
rich library of cinematic tropes, archetypes, texts, and references for the
story, most notably The Creature from the
Black Lagoon, E.T.: The
Extra-Terrestrial, and his own Pan’s
Labyrinth. But the most useful lens to view the film is as a
counter-fantasy to Disney’s The Little
Mermaid, which was excoriated by feminists upon its release for glamorizing
a boy-crazy girl who gives up her voice to land her “prince.” The Shape of Water, by contrast, depicts
a voiceless woman who nevertheless finds a “voice” to bring liberation and love
to others. Not surprisingly, the initial symbol of her liberation is an egg – a
uniquely female object.
Oddly, for a film literally saturated in water, the titular metaphor
remains a mystery. Is it a metaphor of our origin and destiny (the film starts
and ends underwater)? If so, I don’t quite see its relevance. It seems to exist
more for effect than message. Even in the most ridiculous scene of the film, in
which a good-sized bathroom is literally flooded to the ceiling (in a matter of
minutes, with no structural consequences) the fantasy effect overwhelms both
reason and meaning.
The mess of a story aside, the film is deserving of accolades
for its technical brilliance. It is beautifully filmed, with a soundtrack and
score (by Alexandre Desplat) that are wonderful. Some of the acting is exceptional,
most notably Richard Jenkins as Giles, Elisa’s neighbor and friend; and Spencer.
Hawkins is solid as Elisa, despite what she must endure in this ridiculous
script.
Del Toro is a capable film-maker and will undoubtedly get
his share of awards if for no other reason than he knows what buttons to push. As
for me, all I could think after viewing the film was “WTF was that?!”
The Shape of Water
is rated R for sex, nudity, gore, and violence. 2.0 stars out of 4 (2.5 stars
out of 4 for film buffs).
