The Shape of Water is set in the 1960s. Elisa, a mute woman played by Sally Hawkins and her older gay friend, Giles, played by Richard Jenkins live above a grand, but decaying movie theater, and each lives alone in their adjacent apartments. She has her routine, and he has his exile from work and life. At work, which is at a secure government research facility, she cleans with Zelda, her friend and coworker played by Octavia Spencer. Her routine is turned upside down when she encounters The Creature from the Blue Lagoon, a movie that I never saw, played by Doug Jones. Richard Strickland, who is played by Michael Shannon, the agent who discovered him, is clearly a dominionist and sees every one through that lens. If you are not like him, you are less, a resource that he can do with as he will, which makes him the real monster. In contrast, Dr. Hofstettler, a scientist played by Michael Stuhlbarg releases his covert Cold War agenda when confronted with the uniqueness of the Creature. When the Creature’s life is in peril, everyone jumps into action.
I assumed that I would love The Shape of Water. I had even listed it as one of the movies that I would review for Roar before seeing it, which I never do. Guillermo del Toro is a living legend. The cast is perfect, and none of my criticisms are a reflection of the quality of their performance. It is a visually arresting film, but the actual story was a bit twee and self-indulgent. I love when people geek out over what they love, and filmmakers naturally want to pay homage to their temples, but seriously they live over a movie theater. Martin Scorsese called and even he was never this precious.
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Usually del Toro is a master at blending fantasy with mournful reality and striking a chord of the tragic gap between the two, how short reality falls from the beauty of what it could be, but he did not quite succeed. Giles as a character did not seem credible and alienated me from being sympathetic to him almost immediately after being introduced. While it is completely realistic that persecuted minorities often take shelter in what little privilege they have, his instinct to turn off the television when the news was broadcasting footage from a Civil Rights protest instantaneously pegged him as someone that I was not invested in. I understand that this scene is supposed to make his subsequent actions more heroic and reflect a change, but nope, not buying it. He is still self-interested and only rises to the occasion because his only friend wants it. Once he encounters the Creature, his artistic sensibilities kick in, and he is in awe, but he is probably still a trash individual. He will not even be theoretically sympathetic unless it directly affects him and possibly not even then, which I will elaborate on later. So fuck this guy for not being empathetic and not connecting the dots.
I am obviously not a gay man in the 1960s US, but neither is del Toro. Giles seemed like a straight man’s fantasy of a gay man for that time. Yes, being gay was isolating and worst than now. Sure Giles is not young and beautiful anymore, which decreases your possibility of getting a love interest, but being gay did not mean being alone. Gay men do not solely exist to be best friends with women and help them find a mate. It was difficult, but they found ways to find each other and meet albeit initially in secret, particularly in a major city like Baltimore. I adore Jenkins, but you could not find an older gay actor to play Giles? I know that some people may counter, “It is a movie, not a history lesson,” but del Toro wanted The Shape of Water to draw from the emerging civil rights protest of the time to evoke sympathy for the Creature so he needs to make credible characters that would exist at that time, and he did not.
Elisa, I’m trying not to judge, but the first thing that you think when you encounter something mind blowing is that you want to fuck it. He had her at his large webbed hand hello. I’m glad that you found each other and are happy, but for real? I guess that we should just be happy that they are terrestrial life forms or Earthlings because if she was in Area 51, Earth girls would be easy. She wines and dines him then they’re living together the next day. She is putting her job in jeopardy without lining another one up as a backup and losing her security deposit. The struggle is real. She is so thirsty. The minute that I saw the red slashes on either side of her neck, I thought that they were related. She was found by a river as a baby and could not talk. I was literally counting down when they would become gills. Also it did not help that the promotional art for The Shape of Water IS THE FINAL SCENE!!!!! Why would you do that?!? Even though del Toro does not explicitly flesh out her origin story, I thought it was obvious, especially since she dreams and masturbates (furiously) in water.
Unlike Giles, her relationships suggest that even though her interest in the Creature is definitely sexual, it is not a singular instance of reaching out to others rooted in self-interest. She has learned to extrapolate from her own experiences as a disabled woman to extend empathy and see others who are different as human beings worthy of respect, but we know little else about her. Elisa is primarily defined by her sexuality. While it is empowering for women to own their sexuality, it is somewhat problematic that it is central to her identity. Played by a lesser actor in a slightly different context, a description of her character, a woman who sticks to a routine and is obsessed with shoes, could come off as slightly severe. I have a bias against women finding their identity by finding the man of their dreams. I can be happy that you are in a good relationship, but wonder why you were not enough for yourself. The happiness of the woman does not erase the idea that a woman is once again defined by her relationship to a man, who happens to not be a human being. She was not whole before the Creature arrived. A relationship should enhance a person that already fully exists.
Zelda is the black best friend that everyone always claims that they have, but actually don’t. While I liked the idea that she was inherently reticent to disobey rules because of the consequences except her weakness is her sympathy for Elisa, once again, I wonder if some people understand what being friends with a black person actually looks like. Just because we talk at work does not mean that we are friends. Do we hang out outside of work? Do we talk on the phone for fun? When her husband reveals that they were talking on the phone, how? They didn’t have Face Time, and they were not Skyping. I’m not dismissing that they didn’t have a genuine friendship, but was the Creature heist the first time that they did anything outside of work? Again in lesser skilled actors’ hands, this relationship would not have seemed as authentic. Side note: Zelda may be Elisa’s only woman friend, but I do not believe for one instance that Elisa would be Zelda’s only woman friend, not in Baltimore and not as a black woman. My inherent problem with the characters is that they seem to exist to help Elisa and have no lives outside of her or their significant others.
The introduction to Strickland did not quite work. Would he pee in front of staff? Based on #metoo, masturbate, definitely, but pee? The car segment had a gratuitous Dennis the Menace cartoonish quality that was less like putting a cherry on top and more like gilding the lily. Shannon is the GOAT because he always finds new ways to make someone awful. He has it all but there just isn’t enough grumbling, and he is vaguely dissatisfied with the kingdom that is lying before him, but his ambition is stunted and horizontal, not vertical. He is like a Haman figure. I would have loved more time between his epiphany about the Creature and his place in the world. Killing him may be emotionally satisfying, but not as interesting as realizing that your entire worldview is wrong. Del Toro should have given Shannon time to act the shit out of that moment. How would he crumble? Because of his horizontal nature, is redemption possible as a servant? He is a groveller and wants accolades from his superiors. What does that look like?
The Creature is mainly defined by the assumption that he is the opposite of Strickland, who is loathsome, and nice because he likes Elisa, but he has no personality or characteristics other than the ability to evoke dramatic responses around him. Unlike Elisa, we don’t know what he is saying or thinking, but can only infer from his physical responses. If I’m not going to be disgusted by a relationship between a human being and an unknown humanoid species, I need to know what kind of person the Creature is. He likes music and eggs. He can recognize himself in drawings, is curious and can look in wonder at this unknown world. He can feel remorse and try to rectify unintended harm. He will try to kill someone at the slightest provocation, which brings me to the moment that made me emotionally check out of the film and say fuck the Creature, you can die for all I care.
The Creature kills Pandora, one of Giles’ cats, after it hisses at him. Initially the encounter seemed hilarious because it was like a hiss off challenge, “That’s not a knife. THAT’s a knife,” but abruptly is not when the next shot reveals the Creature chowing down on the now headless Pandora. You chop off Strickland’s fingers because he kidnapped and tased you, that is self-defense. You are supposed to be an intelligent creature, but also a wild animal that will kill and eat whatever protein is available. Who else is on the menu? Giles’ reaction to the whole situation is entirely too reasonable. I can objectively understand that you saw my fluffy baby as food, but you can also leave my motherfucking house. Good luck, buddy. The most infuriating moment is when a few minutes later, he is petting the other cats. Did I miss something like a cats are for love, not food, lesson? He waived his cat petting privileges the minute that he decapitated Pandora. Those cats would never let the Creature play with them while Pandora’s lifeless body lies nearby, and no cat human would either. Don’t trust Giles. He’ll sell you out for a full head of hair. Call cat DCF. If I’m remembering correctly, Elisa slept with the Creature after the homicide. Dude, you made out with Alf. Was the cat blood still on his breath?
We discover at the end of the movie that after all of that hullabaloo, including a musical black and white fantasy sequence that left me cold, the Creature can’t die except if outside of water too long! He can regenerate and help others regenerate or have what they once lost, which is why I think Elisa had gills because you can’t make what wasn’t there in the first place. The Creature is supposed to be an emblematic totem for all the oppressed to rally around as a symbol of how magnificent they are. His liberation is supposed to be their liberation, and my response is um, no it is not. I don’t see y’all trying to bust black, disabled or gay people out of jail for being wrongfully treated. This metaphor does not work for me.
The Shape of Water is when a black woman and a gay man went to a lot of trouble to get a disabled woman finally hooked up and happy because the Creature may have needed to be rescued and freed, but even nature won’t permit that until Elisa gets her man. The only one who acted nobly and without self-interest was Dimitri, RIP, whom no one is looking for as he slowly dies in the rain. The Shape of Water is much ado about nothing and takes too damn long to do it.