‘THE SHAPE OF WATER’
DEC. 8
Stars: Sally Hawkins, Doug Jones and Michael Shannon Director: Guillermo del Toro
The skinny: The Shape of Water is “a movie about love and embracing the ‘other’ at a time when we are told to embrace fear and hatred as measures of safety,” del Toro says. Set in 1962, a janitor (Hawkins) at a research facility becomes enamored with a fish man (Jones), whom she seeks to break out of captivity. Del Toro wanted Hawkins’ character to be voiceless because “I didn’t want the falling in love to be anything but pure energy and pure innocence — the looks between them, the chemistry — rather than romantic dialogue,” says the director, who recommended Hawkins watch silent movies. “I said, ‘You have to study the way they use their whole body to communicate longing, emotion, nearness, proximity,’ and she did.”