The Shape of Water (2017, Guillermo del Toro) 4/10
Somehow watching a movie about a mute woman who had underwater sex with an aqua-monster my reaction was, "I wish it had been weirder".
I was initially pretty excited with the film and how it dove in the deep end and didn't come up for air. I thought "great, we're skipping all the boring parts where the protagonist takes 400 years to figure out what we already know". The film goes hard and fast and it had me completely at a loss for where things might be headed. And then it didn't. It hit the breaks and became just another love story.
It had me and lost me.
I'm not in disagreement, as much as I am in confusion. As I was watching this a few days ago, I couldn't figure out where it could possibly go, except for where it went... Except for the end, which baffles me a little. Did he breath into her an aqua lung?
Please, I would love to know how it could have been weirder and what direction you would have liked for this to go. I'm super curious, since I couldn't come up with anything on my own.
I too so appreciated that the story didn't get bogged down in "waiting for the protagonist to get up to speed." What did you think of the acting? Sally Hawkins has been someone who's work you've liked before and what did you think of Richard Jenkins? He's such a great supporting actor and I was really happy to see him get a chance to shine here.
There's a richness seeing all these actors together. From top to bottom you have have this world class cast. Specialists really. So often now a film's casting feels as though it was produced from a computer algorithm, factoring in an actor's qualities such as; their number of magazine cover appearances, their number of twitter followers, how recently their last big hit was, name recognition, and lastly their suitability for the part. For instance, pumped through the usual calculations I could see Natalia Dyer (of Stranger Things) playing Sally Hawkins' role. She would rank higher in all of the aforementioned criteria, and the film is vaguely related to what she's know for (a monster movie), so you could market to the same demographic. That's not to say I think Dyer is a bad actor, or would be a bad choice... I just think it would be the a choice made for business reasons. Where casting Sally Hawkins feels more genuine. Done because that's what felt best for the story. So for that I think this is a special and rare film.
I don't have a bad thing to say about any of the acting. I always find it tough to fully recognize great performances in films I'm less than enthusiastic about, but when I put my feeling about the film aside I do recognize there are some wonderful, effortless (looking) performances here.
What would I change? Always a tough question. One thing I would have eliminated would be the Russian mafia, cold war spy stuff. Those scenes just dragged and felt unimportant. But in a larger way I wish the film had found somewhere to take a darker turn. Not with regards to the monster (it does take a somewhat dark turn when he
eats the cat, but with regards to Sally Hawkins. I wish her
physical change had perhaps come sooner and the film could have built towards an ending which rivalled
The Fly, and resembled it too in a way. Or to go a lighter direction, not keep
keep the monster caged up in an apartment but take to the streets and consequences be damned. A problem I had with the script is that we are so often in a state of
waiting. First it's a countdown to the day when Hawkins attempts
the heist, then it's a coundown to when they
try to make it to the canal. There is a lot of relationship and character stuff in the idle times, and admittedly some wholesome feeling whimsical sequences, but it felt perhaps a bit too restful given the context. At least for me.
The film was pleasantly unrestrained, as was Hawkins character. Her lack of hesitation about
getting phsyical with this otherworldly thing sped the film along where other films might have made that the climax (with a lot of understandable but tiresome to watch reticence getting there). So bravo to the film for that. This ability of the
monster to physically restore or alter people felt like it went unpursued, and I think the film could have taken many dark or light turns exploring it further. An alteration that allowed
Hawkins and the monster to converse more thoroughly and deeply than their limited dialogue in sign language allowed may have opened some interesting avenues.