Peter Howell’s Best Picture prediction,
It may seem strange, in this #MeToo moment, for a movie about a woman falling for a potentially threatening male creature to be leading the Oscar nominations. But when monster romance The Shape of Water wins Best Picture at the March 4 Academy Awards, as it most likely will, the honour will recognize both artistic achievement and an acceptable compromise in Hollywood’s darkest year.
Guillermo del Toro’s aquatic love story, filmed in Toronto and Hamilton, led Tuesday morning’s Oscar nominations with a near-record 13 nods, among them potential gold for picture, director, actress (Sally Hawkins), supporting actress (Octavia Spencer), supporting actor (Richard Jenkins) and original screenplay (del Toro and Vanessa Taylor).
The Shape of Water is far ahead of its nearest rivals Dunkirk (eight nominations) and Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (seven nominations).
This distinction alone would have been enough in many years past to assure top glory, since the leading nominee almost always triumphs. But La La Land proved tradition wrong just last year, losing Best Picture to Moonlight despite having a record-tying 14 nominations. (The two previous 14-nominee movies, Titanic in 1997 and All About Eve in 1950, both won Best Picture.)
Academy voters obviously saw The Shape of Water pairing of a human female with a beastly male amphibian as the sincere love story that del Toro intended it to be, a valentine to the magic of the movies and also to the Hollywood screen monsters the Mexican-born writer/director has adored since childhood.