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Guillermo del Toro gets writer and director credit on this unusual love story and it's clearly a vision project. From the opening moments you know how it's going to go, how it'll end - the joy is in getting there. 4/5 stars and a great date movie.
I'll try to do this non-spoiler, since there's so little to spoil. Although it's not necessary to have seen any other del Toro film to appreciate this movie, I think it helps to understand how he shapes a script, how he juxtaposes characters, and how he lets things be suggested and understood by an engaged viewer. The Shape of Water does all those things - let me explain:
The set-up is pretty simple - woman falls in love with captured creature and plans to rescue it from its tormentors before they murder it. Early on we're warned about a "monster" and it's easy to tell which character is being referred to. del Toro makes clear who we're to sympathize with, and does an artful job of giving characters pathos without making them pathetic. I love having characters in stories that are somehow on the outs or down side of their society and are still shown to be complete and complex individuals.
The movie is set in the early 1960s, making it two movies in two years where Octavia Spencer appears as a black woman in that American period (previously Hidden Figures). Here she plays a cleaning woman alongside Sally Hawkins at the secret military facility where the "Amphibian Man" is held. Hawkins' Elisa Esposito is mute, and speaks Sign, giving Spencer's Zelda Fuller the chance to be her voice for much of the movie. Some of the strongest bits of the movie are in their interactions - you get a clear sense of their friendship without needing to have every detail spelled out.
In the movie's historical context, we get to see how the discriminations of that era play out and affect the characters, without the movie being explicitly about those things. Again, credit to del Toro for trusting his audience to "get it". Amphibian Man is his own being, not a simplistic stand-in for any specific group. I think it's easier to see Amphibian Man as one in a long line of complex "monstrosities" that del Toro has brought to life and examined in his movies.
And speaking of that, it's entirely possible to read this movie as an origin story for Hellboy's Abe Sapien. The casting of Doug Jones (http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0427964/?ref_=tt_cl_t7) in both roles is not impossible to believe as a coincidence but also easy to see as a message from del Toro to fans.
I'll try to do this non-spoiler, since there's so little to spoil. Although it's not necessary to have seen any other del Toro film to appreciate this movie, I think it helps to understand how he shapes a script, how he juxtaposes characters, and how he lets things be suggested and understood by an engaged viewer. The Shape of Water does all those things - let me explain:
The set-up is pretty simple - woman falls in love with captured creature and plans to rescue it from its tormentors before they murder it. Early on we're warned about a "monster" and it's easy to tell which character is being referred to. del Toro makes clear who we're to sympathize with, and does an artful job of giving characters pathos without making them pathetic. I love having characters in stories that are somehow on the outs or down side of their society and are still shown to be complete and complex individuals.
The movie is set in the early 1960s, making it two movies in two years where Octavia Spencer appears as a black woman in that American period (previously Hidden Figures). Here she plays a cleaning woman alongside Sally Hawkins at the secret military facility where the "Amphibian Man" is held. Hawkins' Elisa Esposito is mute, and speaks Sign, giving Spencer's Zelda Fuller the chance to be her voice for much of the movie. Some of the strongest bits of the movie are in their interactions - you get a clear sense of their friendship without needing to have every detail spelled out.
In the movie's historical context, we get to see how the discriminations of that era play out and affect the characters, without the movie being explicitly about those things. Again, credit to del Toro for trusting his audience to "get it". Amphibian Man is his own being, not a simplistic stand-in for any specific group. I think it's easier to see Amphibian Man as one in a long line of complex "monstrosities" that del Toro has brought to life and examined in his movies.
And speaking of that, it's entirely possible to read this movie as an origin story for Hellboy's Abe Sapien. The casting of Doug Jones (http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0427964/?ref_=tt_cl_t7) in both roles is not impossible to believe as a coincidence but also easy to see as a message from del Toro to fans.
