Film Reviews & Movie Analysis

It can only be a sign when a happy-go-lucky cleaner finds a connection with the most unlikely… individual.

It’s the 1960’s and amidst sending men to the moon, the cold war and Martin Luther King Jr, the government is discovering and experimenting on the unknown.

Elisa Esposito (Sally Hawkins) has her routines; she wakes up in the evening, boils a few eggs while she’s in the shower taking care of business, and then makes lunch for her and her neighbour Giles (Richard Jenkins) before heading off to work the night shift at a government facility, where she works happily alongside best friend Zelda (Octavia Spencer).

She is happy to listen, to watch, to communicate when necessary and have her friends translate for her. Elisa is content with her life and her inability to speak, but all that normalcy is uprooted when a new government official (Michael Shannon) comes along hauling his prize possession like cattle.

While he takes an interest in Elisa, she is busy taking an interest in his Asset (Doug Jones).

Though elements of this movie felt familiar (Beauty and the Beast) it set its up on a shelf entirely of its own. Predominantly, having a main character who was mute. This completely shattered how we think about those with vocal impairment, and the art of communication both in person and having that barrier translated onto the screen, which was displayed perfectly during one of two particularly gut wrenching scenes.

If you ask me this movie was seeped in the arts, and there were so many not so subtle hints pointing it out; Elisa’s neighbor and friend Giles was a professional illustrator, they had a love of 1940’s musicals, tap, jazz and they even bloody lived above a cinema.

That’s not even mentioning the art outside the movie – that melodic soundtrack that gave me Amélie/Parisian feels, and the design of The Asset’s costume that looked like it was plucked straight from the hearts and minds of old time cinema goers – pre CGI.

All of the above was at odds with the science, military and espionage that went on in the background of the movie. I don’t have a conclusive comment to make about the comparison, let alone begin to identify the underlying theme of it… but it was magical.

There were two things I didn’t like about this movie. The first being Colonel Richard Strickland; the movies antagonist. More specifically, Michael Shannon’s portrayal of him.

You may recognise Michael Shannon from Boardwalk Empire. Not only because he was in Boardwalk Empire, but because his performance here was like he never left the set of Boardwalk Empire. I only watched the first few episodes of the series, but his mannerisms, personality and overall characterisation there hit a little too close to the ones he displayed here and so felt unoriginal.

Secondly, is one that will depend wholly on the individual – and that was the scene where we went into Elisa’s mind and saw here re-enact a scene straight from a 1940’s musical – plum feather dress and all. It’s a bit of a bold statement considering some of the things that happen in the film, but for me it took away from the self-contained – confident and unapologetic reality the story had built.

I’ll keep all other *cough* surprises in The Shape of Water for you to discover for yourselves – but let’s just say my jaw did doth drop to the floor and stayed there for quite some time.

At its core, The Shape of Water is a romance movie, (and not in the way Deadpool claimed to be) but it completely turns the genre on its head by fusing it with science fiction and some disturbing scenes that easily make you forget. It’s a hybrid that works and it’s one filmmakers and screenwriters could stand to learn a lot from.