OVP: The Shape of Water (2017)

Film: The Shape of Water (2017)
Stars: Sally Hawkins, Michael Shannon, Richard Jenkins, Doug Jones, Michael Stuhlbarg, Octavia Spencer
Director: Guillermo del Toro
Oscar History: 13 nominations/4 wins (Best Picture*, Director*, Actress-Sally Hawkins, Supporting Actor-Richard Jenkins, Supporting Actress-Octavia Spencer, Cinematography, Costume Design, Film Editing, Original Score*, Production Design*, Sound Mixing, Sound Editing, Original Screenplay)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 3/5 stars

My relationship with Guillermo del Toro is not uncomplicated.  The first film I ever saw of his was Pan's Labyrinth more than a decade ago, and I loved it.  It was one of my favorite movies of 2006, and I remember being in awe of the magical realism of the picture, and the way that it engaged an enchanting fairy tale with a grim reality in Franco's Spain.  But the years since have worn on this relationship.  I thought the Hellboy movies were mediocre at best, frequently trading on the "I'm a freak, but I'm beautiful" message a little bit too hard.  Crimson Peak was what used to be called a "hot mess," and Pacific Rim's most important contribution to cinema was this.  As a result, I went into his most critically-lauded picture since Pan's Labyrinth with some modulated trepidation.  The trailer was beautiful, the actors in it felt like they would fit del Toro's world but not be overwhelmed by it, and I was ready after a hard year to invest a bit more fully in a complicated fairy tale.  Unfortunately, while it's lovely to look at and has its moments, The Shape of Water continues the trend of movies I'm more indifferent to than swept away by when it comes to del Toro's cinematic output.

(Spoilers Ahead) The film centers upon Elisa (Hawkins), a mute janitor in the 1960's, working at a secret research facility at the height of the Cold War.  She lives a staid life, marked by routine (polishing shoes, hard-boiled eggs for lunch, and because this is a del Toro film, morning masturbation in the bathtub) and quiet friendships with her aging gay neighbor Giles (Jenkins) and her fellow, chatty janitor friend Zelda (Spencer).  One day, a new creature, played by Doug Jones (kind of similar to what a mermaid would be if it were 50% fish, 50% human, but if it was your whole body), is brought in by a sadistic colonel (Shannon), who takes a perverse shine to Elisa and enjoys torturing the creature.  The film unfolds with Elisa falling in love with the creature, trying to free him while the colonel is out to destroy him, and increasingly dominate her.

The movie functions as yet another strange fairy tale, and like most of del Toro's films, there are moments of visual splendor that are undeniable.  The magical realism is occasionally ridiculous (that entire sequence where they're floating in the bathroom defied physics in a way nothing else in the film does), but it's lovely to look at, and the sunset scenes are gorgeous.  The movie, though, suffers from too much plot, and performances that are all-over-the-map (okay, just Michael Shannon).  As the colonel, an actor who is rare on subtlety (and really has an imposing physical demeanor that doesn't allow for such things), his increasingly manic portrayal of a deranged and unhinged colonel is too much for even a film that suspends reality so frequently, and toward the end his cartoonish villainy has totally subsumed the picture.  Combined with a confusing performance from Michael Stuhlbarg (who can blame this more on the screenwriters, who make his motives nearly impossible to discover and his character resolution is left bloody on a pile of sand...literally), the film's plot is too sloppy for my tastes.

The rest of the performances fare better.  Spencer is such a winning screen presence she fares the best with this complicated material, giving Zelda a worn warmth that I responded toward.  Hawkins is getting the lion's share of the plaudits, but while it's a physically demanding role, I have to admit I wasn't as drawn to this work as I suspected I would be.  Her character is interesting, but she doesn't sink in the way you'd expect during the tougher scenes, particularly when she goes quickly from self-sufficiency and self-pity and back again.  And with all due respect, Richard Jenkins is not convincing as a gay man.  His plot is equally tragic to Elisa's, perhaps more so because he's left with nothing in the end of the film, but the script doesn't really care about that, and it feels an awful lot like the "sassy gay friend" trope in a film that has a pretty strong queer narrative otherwise.

All-in-all, I left unimpressed even if there's obviously something fascinating there.  Del Toro's going to continue to demand my ticket money if only because his visuals are too interesting for me to skip out (plus, he may well be headed to his "Oscar-friendly" phase after The Shape of Water), but I think that if this film can't get me to amour once again, I doubt I ever will for anything other than Pan's Labyrinth from his creative mind.