The Shape of Water

Beauty and the Beast redux

Guillermo del Toro's The Shape of Water is a nice film, but nice is a limiting adjective within the horror genre. As with almost all of del Toro's previous films, the art direction, cinematography and costumes are superb, but this time, del Toro and his fellow scenarist, Vanessa Taylor, have fashioned a stronger story than in such del Toro fizzles as Blade 2 and Crimson Peak. The script is another variation on Beauty and the Beast with beauty a put upon mute cleaning woman who toils at a sinister aquatic research center where her beast is an imprisoned object of research. The tone is light, more Tim Burton than David Cronenberg, and the flick gets nice chuckles from hard boiled eggs, dismembered digits and underwater bestiality. Paul D. Austerberry's production design captures the style of 1962 while having a nice lived-in look to it. The Baltimore of the era is not captured, but this is not fatal to what is essentially a fable.

However, there is an aura of predictability about the proceedings. As soon as you meet the all too perfectly cast Michael Shannon, you know he is the film's Gaston and that he will meet a bad end. Olivia Spencer and Richard Jenkins are always nice to see, but simply flesh out stock figures here. Michael Stuhlbarg is, as usual, effective in his role as a Russian Spy, but his character's subplot is underwritten and overlong. Del Toro's best films, The Devil's Backbone and Pan's Labyrinth, have a little more darkness and teeth to them. Watching The Shape of Water, the viewer fully expects the heroine to wind up with her love under the sea, like Ariel, and this is exactly what happens.

What prevents the complete Disneyfication of the film is the performance of Sally Hawkins. Her Elisa is at once a winsome waif from the silent era and a modern erotic presence. The film introduces her character going through her daily routine, including her ablutions, to establish Elisa as a flesh and blood creature starved for romance. Hawkins makes Elisa enough of a seemingly real character that her plight is never mawkish. True horror, like in The Fly, would confront physical issues that The Shape of Water would rather skirt. It cops out by making its beast a healing, Jesus-like figure. We are left with a slice of cinema fantastique that is sweet, but slight. (2/5/18)