Plot Intro
Mute girl (Sally Hawkins) meets lizard man (Doug Jones). Girl falls in love with lizard man. Lizard man is kept in scientific research facility and tortured and abused by Big Bad Man (Michael Shannon). Girl enlists help of mates (Richard Jenkins and Octavia Spencer) to help Lizard Man escape. Girl and Lizard Man engage in canoodlings in a bath tub. Big Bad Man gives chase.
This is the first film to win after we started our project and we made a point of seeing all the nominees that year. So, after nearly three years of blogging, this is the first time we can review a film in comparison to all of its competitors. And although The Shape of Water received the most nominations and had a lot of movie-goers talking, I wouldn’t have voted for it to win over the phenomenal Three Billboards and the lesser-known Ladybird.
It’s far from a bad film, in fact it’s pretty damn good. Hawkins and, especially Spencer, are a pair of heroines you can really support. Hawkins’ vulnerable body language juxtaposed with moments of strength will have you cheering her on as she sign languages “Fuck you” to Big Baddie Richard Strickland. And Spencer, of course, can flawlessly deliver a lengthy series of punchlines without a break. Personally, I would have made her the lead, and I strongly recommend seeing her Oscar-winning performance in The Help too. Shannon does a suitable level of sneering and snarling to make you yell “boo hiss” at his villain, and Doug Jones (a frequent Del Toro collaborator) moves so well that you forget he’s a man in a giant lizard costume. The film is, generally, a perfect Saturday night fantasy drama, emotionally involving and exciting enough to divert you for a couple of hours. In fact, I gave it a full 10 when I saw it in the cinemas just before it won.
But here’s the glaring problem I’ve noticed on a repeat viewing, and it lies in the story-telling. Where Three Billboards shocked and surprising its audience with some incredibly innovative and powerful plotting, Shape of Water is comparatively predictable. Nothing happens in it that defies conventions, or audience’s expectations. The good and the bad characters are sign posted very obviously, and none of them have any more layers other than that. The good characters win and the bad ones lose. The film tries to be a fable about how the members of society who are usually downtrodden, i.e. the disabled (Hawkins), the non-white (Spencer) and the LGBT (Jenkins), rise up against the abusive power of the straight white man, as represented by Shannon, the irony being that Shannon’s character spends most of the story with an injured hand that is slowly decaying, showing that his societal power is pretty superficial. But the film doesn’t have much else to say other than that.
Three Billboards sends you on a pretty deep philosophical journey about the ethics of life, revenge, and justice, while Lady Bird tackles the coming-of-age drama with unparalleled freshness. But The Shape of Water is a simple tale of the underdogs rising over the bully. I suppose its most original feature is the idea of a women and a non-human creature falling in love, but even a simpering soundtrack and a pretty fetching lizard suit can’t make this seem romantic- even by the end I still found it a bit weird. But who am I to judge?! Love transcends everything, I suppose.
Before The Shape of Water won, it was an easy 10/10. It’s an involving and lively tale, and there’s nothing particularly bad about it. But now that it has entered the Cinematic Hall of Fame by winning Best Picture, it should be held to a much higher, or at least different, standard. And as a result of that, its lack of originality, and its rather simplistic story-telling and characterisation become more noticeable.
Highlight
Pretty much anything Octavia Spencer says.
Lowlight
I wasn’t a fan of Richard Jenkins’ character. He’s supposed to be a loveable, bumbling old eccentric, but the script makes him a bit of a buffoon in my eyes. Not great for LGBT representation.
Mark
8/10
Okay, let’s get the elephant in the corner out of the way. The Shape of Water was not the best film out of its year’s nominees, and this shouldn’t have won Best Picture. Both Three Billboards Outside Epping, Missouri and Lady Bird were robbed, and this felt very much like the Academy choosing a safe option that also celebrated their own history. In essence, a bit too much self-love and not enough recognition of the true excellence on display in 2017.
Okay, putting this aside, Guillermo del Toro puts on a great show with this fairytale story of a woman falling in love with a monster amphibian thingamajig that has been captured by an American secret police entity. It’s beautifully shot (as we would expect of any del Toro film) and superbly acted. I’m not here to criticise Sally Hawkins (although a) why is a film about oppressed people focusing on a thin white woman? and b) why has an able-bodied actor yet again been cast as a disabled person?) who delivers a great performance as Elise.
I am here though to wonder why the film centres on a woman but removes her voice. It’s interesting how, although the story weaves a parallel between Elise and Fish-Man both being unable to speak, this still doesn’t quite sit easy. Theatre and cinema has a rather unpleasant history of taking away women’s voices and then calling them fascinating for not being able to speak (Beatrice at the end of Much Ado About Nothing; the central character in Roma) and this doesn’t manage to get far away enough from that to satisfy me.
I’m also here to wonder why Octavia Spencer, who is clearly one of the best actresses working today, is yet again forced to rise above the material given to her. The thirty second phone call she gives at the end of the film, and her turning against her bullying husband, is magnificent acting. Luckily Netflix has announced she’s about to lead a brand new, high budget series this year, so perhaps 2020 will bring us the Octavia-in-full-flight content that we really all need.
del Toro’s greatest work is Pan’s Labyrinth, a film that should have taken the Best Film trophy in 2006 but didn’t because it’s in Spanish and apparently the Academy can’t deal with subtitles. Pan’s Labyrinth is a magnificent, flawless film that achieves the seamless blend of fantasy and reality, a vicious villain and a comeuppance that leaves viewers screaming in triumph at the screen. I won’t spoil it, but suffice to say: ‘he won’t even know your name’ is one of the best lines to climax a film.
The Shape of Water tries to recreate these successes - a villain beyond redemption, a doctor who tries to save the day, a sense of a bittersweet ending (although not nearly enough). But while it makes for a glossy, well-crafted film, it ultimately lacks the power and pathos of del Toro’s earlier work. Michael Shannon turns in a great performance as the evil psychopath hunting down Fishman McGee, but ultimately this film leaves one slightly unenthused (in a way that both Pan’s Labyrinth and this year’s rival Three Billboards really - really - didn’t).
Not a bad try, but nowhere near a fair winner. I still believe that the gong went to Shape of Water in apology for the Academy not understanding quite how good Pan’s Labyrinth was. But the lasting feeling is that Three Billboards was unjustifiably robbed.
Highlight
I love when del Toro gets fantastical, and the sex scene in the room filled with water while the old cinema below gets flooded is both unbelievable and beautiful.
Lowlight
The film reaches for a pathos and emotion that it never quite gets to.
Mark
6/10
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