It
Nominated: Call Me By Your Name, The Darkest Hour, Dunkirk, Get Out, Lady Bird, Phantom Thread, The Post, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
Should have won: Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
Be sure to see: The Belko Experiment, Colossal, Happy Death Day, Murder on the Orient Express, Passengers, Rogue One, Split, Wind River, Wonder, Wonder Woman
"Unable to perceive the shape of you, I find you all around me. Your presence fills my eyes with your love. It humbles my heart, for you are everywhere,"--Giles
What would you say If I were to tell you there was a movie about a gillman, similar to the creature from the Black Lagoon, kept in a tank in the depths of a secret government laboratory and a mute cleaning woman for the facility--who masturbates regularly-- takes it home to have sex with it? If I were told this, I would think it to be the plot of a B horror movie, possibly made in the sixties, on an extremely low budget with a small cult following. Not only is it a modern film, it is a critically acclaimed Academy Award winner for best picture. Who would have believed it?
In Universal's 1954 classic The Creature from the Black Lagoon, an expedition on the Amazon River encounters a vicious gill man who kills some of the crew and has an eye for the woman on board. I read that the idea for Shape of Water came when the movie's director, Guillermo del Toro, was watching Creature and wanted to see the gill man and the girl's romance bloom. A human/monster love story is not a new concept; in 1933's King Kong, the monster falls in love with the girl and in the two remakes, the filmmakers had the woman reciprocate his feelings. While the girl in the 1976 and 2005 versions develop compassion for the beast, in Shape of Water, cleaning woman Elisa Esposito dares to take these feeling a few steps further.
It is 1962 Baltimore and Elisa and Zelda (Octavia Spencer) spend their days cleaning up the aforementioned top secret lab. An accident causes Richard Strickland, the head of the lab (I guess that's his title) to lose a finger, and the two women are assigned to tidy up. Strickland is played by Michael Shannon, an actor IMDB says is from Lexington.You might recognize him from Revolutionary Road or Nocturnal Animals, both of which earned him a best supporting actor nod, or perhaps his tiny part in Groundhog day. Let's hope you don't know him from the dreadful Bug. At any rate, most of the cast I could see with other actors but Shannon was perfectly cast for Strickland. He just looked menacing, even when he had nothing to say. Sometimes his facial expressions reminded me of the demented surgeon in The Human Centipede.
While cleaning, Elisa discovers something the lab has been hiding, a gillman kept in a tank and through spying sees the torture the scientists (?) put it through. She forms a bond and begins feeding it eggs. These are the moments that sparked the thoughts of King Kong for me.It became a sort of animal compassion story. What happens later are events Ann Darrow never considered to attempt with the mighty Kong.
I found it funny how Elisa was able to mop in the lab during business hours. You'd think they'd keep that locked up pretty tight but she can just wonder in there and mop away. Not to mention just hang out with the subject without a plethora of scientists entering to do their experiments. But the cruelty of the experiments drive Eliza to attempt a rescue mission for the creature. Once the creature is at Eliza's apartment, in her tub, is where the story takes an awkward turn and I wonder if during the plot pitch, half the room didn't scoff. A cleaning woman rescuing a creature from a lab and then having sex with the creature? There might have been some empty seats after that. By the way, I'm not sure if my saying the rescue attempt being successful is a spoiler. At first I thought I shouldn't spill that but I think by the ads and movie posters it was common knowledge.
But Elisa and her neighbor, Giles, begin to care for the creature which is certainly humanoid but with animal instincts. Giles' cat can attest to that. It is about this time that the key scene occurs where Eliza finally takes the next step in expressing her love for the creature. As you see on the movie's poster, she fills the bathroom with water to seduce the it in a scene that should have been as crazy as a Looney Toons cartoon. Yet, somehow, I bought the scene as not only possible but probable it would work. I'm sure Mythbusters would bust the goings-on in this scene but maybe not. I'm going to go with not; it is more enjoyable that way.
Elisa has a fantasy where she can sing and I thought that scene was both good and bad. Good because I like musicals so their dance, though brief, is well done and it was in her head so she wasn't mute anymore. But, for me, having her speak took me out of the magic for just a second. But if you can fantasize about dancing, why can't you fantasize about being able to speak and sing? So I get it, I just would have preferred Elisa remain mute. She and Giles spend time watching Shirly Temple tap movies early in the film so it was foreshadowing there would be a dance number.
All in all, I enjoyed the movie. Mainly because I like monsters, even if it isn't straight horror. What sets the creature from the Black Lagoon apart from other classic monsters is we don't sympathize for him. He's a killer. Frankenstein's monster and the wolf man are tragic figures, cursed by things they can't control. The creature from the Black Lagoon is just a killer animal instinct. The Shape of Water takes a version of this creature and spins it in a new direction, giving it a heart. To date, 1991's Silence of the Lambs is the only horror movie to win best picture. The Shape of Water isn't horror but is a monster movie, and I'm glad to see the Academy knock down that monster movie barrier.
