The Shape of Water
Cert: 15A; Opens on Wednesday
Mexican filmmaker Guillermo del Toro loves his monsters. He explained recently that the reason for his fondness for creatures is their predictability, humans don’t always deliver on their promise but monsters do. Humans can be deceptive, monsters cannot.
His much lauded latest film, The Shape of Water, is informed by that same theory but also asks what is a monster and what is monstrous?
A beautiful homage to cinema, its moral is far from subtle, but Sally Hawkins’s wonderful performance raises it from cute oddity to emotional journey.
In 1960s Maryland Elisa (Hawkins) is a janitor in a large secretive company where her friend Zelda (Octavia Spencer) does all the talking for Elisa who cannot speak and only signs.
At home Elisa has a steady routine and another close friend Giles (Richard Jenkins). It’s 1962, the Cold War is at its height and in an America defined by the pesky Ruskies, a mute woman, a black woman and a gay man are very much outsiders.
When The Asset, an amphibian man (Doug Jones) is captured and held in her workplace, Elisa is drawn to what everyone else sees as a monster, so inhuman it is sentenced to death by panto villain head of security Strickland (Michael Shannon). But Elisa, devoid of words has seen beyond appearances to form a deeper connection.
Essentially a ‘who is the real monster’ fairytale, Hawkins’s wordlessly wonderful passionate portrayal gives it greater emotional resonance but the moral is delivered too heavy handedly at times.
But overall this green-tinged beauty of a film has lots of humour and much to enjoy as a magical ode to love and connection.