Day 51 The Shape of Water [2017]
Screenplay Guillermo
del Toro & Vanessa Taylor
Director Guillermo
del Toro
Cinematography Dan
Laustsen
Music Alexandre
Desplat
Leads Sally Hawkins,
Michael Shannon, Richard Jenkins, Doug Jones, Michael Stuhlbarg, Octavia
Spencer
Production TSG Entertainment, Double
Dare You Productions
IMDb 7.8/10
Rotten Tomatoes 92%
Très, très beau. I really should have gone to see
it in the cinema. Instead I watched it on my laptop with a couple of friends at
2AM. Despite both of my friends falling asleep almost instantly and my eyes
begging to be shut due to severe drowsiness I had to stay awake. It’s
enchanting and miraculous, as is usual for del Toro. It was a beautiful French
romance set in Baltimore, at least that’s what it felt like. We’re in Baltimore
in the 60s where a shady government holding site/laboratory building (Area 51
style) gets a new asset in the shape of a mysterious water creature (see what I
did there?). The creature is essentially what I would imagine a merman to look
like, a man-fish-lizard thing. The reason it is a
romance is because of the mute Elisa (Sally Hawkins), a cleaning maid at the
facility, who falls in love with the creature. There is the usual American
Soviet Cold War dialogue going on in the background, brilliantly accentuated by
Michael Shannon as Colonel Richard Strickland. He was the pick of the bunch in
this excellent cast, playing a merciless man hell-bent on finishing his
assignment to the monster. To do this he has to learn what he can about the
creature with his flawed torturous methods. This leads to him deciding vivisection
is the only way to learn the creature’s secrets. The plot develops from here as
by now Elisa has fallen in love and there’s a Russian spy who also wants to
save it. The music is brilliant, it transports you to a Parisian street corner
and I hope Desplat takes home an Oscar for it ahead of the usual reprobates
Williams and Zimmer. I should mention Jenkins who plays Elisa’s neighbour Giles
and Spencer who plays her friend Zelda as they are both marvellous. I was
sceptical about the number of nominations this film received at the Academy
Awards this year as they can sometimes be dodgy and Oscar films aren’t always
the best films of the year, but this film deserves every single one. It’s not
quite Pan’s Labyrinth, but it ain’t far off.
Acting 4
/ 4
Writing 3.5
/ 4
Cinematography 3
/ 4
Music 4 / 4
HWF rating 3.5 / 4