I started to watch this year’s Best Picture winner on board my flight to Europe this summer, thinking it was the perfect time to relax and jot down some of my thoughts. I guess I totally forgot that I was traveling with my four children and that I wouldn’t have one minute of peace or silence since my two year old would be in my face the whole time. I also noticed twenty minutes in that something was blurred out and I then remembered it saying that the film had been “modified and edited for content” so I turned it off. If I couldn’t watch the “real” version, I couldn't give an honest opinion.
I was able to sit down a couple
of months later, and I have to say, I did not fall in love with this movie, nor
with the aquatic creature that our main character does. The Director/Writer
Guillermo Del Toro says this is a “fairytale for troubled times”. Overall, I
found it rather ridiculous and sometimes laughably so. But, for tradition’s
sake, I’ll go through with the plot line and my thoughts on it all…
The narrator introduces the
main character, Elisa, and describes her as a princess, letting us know off the
bat how we should feel for her and this fairytale film. Elisa cannot speak, but
can hear and use sign language, so she seems to get along just fine. She even
cares for her next door neighbor who appears to be one of her two friends. The
other is Zelda, and the two of them work as night-time cleaning ladies at an
aeronautical research institute. The setting is early 1960’s Baltimore, in the
middle of the Russian space/science race. A “highly sensitive specimen” gets
delivered to the institute (Lord knows why exactly), and Elisa befriends it,
bringing it her favorite food, hard-boiled eggs, and playing music for it on a
record player. Though wild, the amphibious creature (who looks a whole lot like
the Creature from the Black Lagoon) learns she is a gentle soul, unlike the fairytale
villain, Strickland, who uses an electric cattle prod when he doesn’t behave as
expected.
Elisa decides, with the help of
her two friends, to bust Fish-Man out of his watery cage and release him when
the canals are at their fullest, on a specific date in October. He spends a
good deal of time in her bathtub waiting for his release date. (Meanwhile,
drama goes down between a Russian spy/scientist and Strickland who’s in deep
water, no pun intended, for letting the specimen escape.) While it is clear
Elisa has sincere feelings for Fish-Man and his well-being, I think it is too
far-fetched of an idea to believe she actually falls in love with him. But she
does; she feels connected to him like no other, and they share a love scene in
her flooded bathroom. Then we have to learn about a few of the details as she
signs them to Zelda. TMI, thanks.
ENDING SPOILER: In typical
fairytale fashion, the monstrous villain is destroyed and the happy couple is
reunited in love and live happily ever after… in water.
Del Toro is quite the visionary
though, I’ll give him that. He wanted people to see this film as “realistic historical
fiction” and NOT as fantasy, or sci-fi, bless his heart. His film definitely
had a well thought out look. Almost everything in the film appears to be wet or
relates to water… whether it’s actually raining, or there’s a massive leak, or
the main character is mopping the floor of the institute. Also, the color
palette for the whole movie seems to have settled on blues and greens, aquatic
in tone. Add to that the music and camera work, both of which sound/seem fluid
in nature, and it’s a wonder I didn’t get seasick. The camera’s focus almost
floats from scene to scene rather effortlessly, and the accompanying music
sweeps you along melodically, not punctuated at all.
There were three or four scenes
that contained nudity, most of which I thought were unnecessary. There was also
offensive language- they seemed to want to cover all bases so there were
inappropriate comments made to or about women, blacks, homosexuals, and the
disabled.
I went ahead and watched the
special features on my rented DVD which had a few interviews of the cast and
crew. Ironically, they each exuded more heart-felt emotion describing the film than when they actually made it. Regardless, I
still didn’t believe them when they said this is “the ultimate love story”. And
all I felt was bad for Sally Hawkins (Elisa) who said that for us to believe
they were falling in love, it had “to be real and right”…. agreed; and it was
not. And then she lost me for good when
she tried to convince us that “love can literally break down walls”. There
aren’t enough eye-rolling emojis in the world to go after that.
This year’s broadcast had the
lowest viewing audience in history which could be due to a number of reasons:
the disinterest from the lack of more popular blockbusters on the ballot, the ever-increasing
run-time of the show year after year, and/or even the politicization of
Hollywood and cultural movements like #MeToo and Time’s Up. “The Shape of
Water” had a whopping thirteen nominations and won four awards, including Best
Director, Best Original Score, and Best Production Design (those three didn’t
surprise me based on what I mentioned above). This drama/fantasy/romance film
was up against “Darkest Hour”, “Call Me by Your Name”, “Ladybird”, “Dunkirk”,
“The Post”, “Get Out”, “Phantom Thread”, and the oddest titled one, “Three
Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri”. Most critics predicted that last one to
win BP.
FAVORITE SCENES:
“Favorite” meaning this scene
is memorable because it made me laugh out loud and roll my eyes at the same
time. There is a black and white daydream sequence where Elisa starts
professing her love for Fish-Man through song and dance. It looks like it came
straight from the ending of the Best Picture winner of 2011, “The Artist”.
Compare….
I have to admit that the ending
suited this fairytale well. No matter how harebrained the storyline is, I root
for love.
LESSONS LEARNED:
Empathy is an honorable
character trait and/or complicated skill to possess and/or cultivate. No matter how it is properly defined, a person who is
empathetic is automatically more trusting and relatable. Empathy allows for
more intimacy, tearing down barriers like facades.
Love can grow in the oddest
of places. And who am I to question its
validity? Just a critic.