Sunday, December 31, 2017

The Shape of Water


The Shape of Water

(Slight spoilers. I don't give away anything that the trailer doesn't give away, but boy was that a spoilery trailer.)

Sometimes my expectations can get the best of me. Normally I'm not one to overhype movies for myself, but I really love unlikely romances (Her, Punch-Drunk Love, and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind are some of my very favorite movies), and the prospect of Guillermo Del Toro telling an odd fantasy-romance tale was a very exciting prospect for me. Add this amazing cast, the overwhelmingly positive reviews, and the coupling of a mute woman and a fishman and I'm all in. But then I was disappointed. The problem, for me, is that the movie gives as much time to its contrived and silly subplots as it does its actually unique and interesting central romance plot, which causes the movie to feel weirdly paced and unbalanced.

If you happened to read my Star Wars: The Last Jedi review, you'll know that a big problem I had with that movie was that there was way too much time spent on side missions instead of Rey, the central protagonist. Well, that happened again. Michael Shannon, Richard Jenkins, and Michael Stuhlbarg all have their own side stories that end up getting a lot of screen time. This would be alright in a different kind of film (most Charlie Kaufman and Paul Thomas Anderson films are about a center premise causing a wide ripple effect over several characters), but in a romance where the two lovers are so odd and engaging, there's really no need for all these other side quests. Plus it doesn't help that these lower-letter stories are not even that interesting to begin with.

Michael Shannon is a completely one-dimensional villain who was transparently made for audiences to boo at, and what's worse is that he's not even that menacing. The villain in Pan's Labyrinth is irredeemable as well, but he makes up for it by being a horrifying monster. Shannon's character, while undeniably psychotic by the end, starts off as racist and sexist, but in a weirdly held-back way, as if Del Toro was afraid of coming off as racist himself by writing the character. I know Tarantino is excessive in his use of racial slurs, but Hans Landa and Calvin Candie are superb racist villains because they're completely uninhibited in their views. Shannon says things like "your people" and says some sexually explicit things to Elisa, but that's about it. Del Toro needed to pick a lane, whether it be a character who's empathetic and human, or a terrifying monster, and drive it all the way down. Meanwhile, Michael Stuhlbarg's communist side story goes absolutely nowhere. He could've just been a regular scientist with a heart and there wouldn't need to be so much precious time devoted to awkward, uninteresting scenes between him and some nonthreatening Russians. Richard Jenkins is delightful in his performance, but again, his story is one that's been done many times before and there's really nothing new added to it. He pines after a guy who works at a pie shop in what is essentially just William H. Macy's story in Magnolia but less interesting, and all it leads to is realizing that in the 1960's a lot of white people were racist, which, yeah. There's a couple different times the civil rights movement is mentioned, and I suppose the connection is supposed to be that black people are trying to prove their humanity in the same way that Elisa is trying to prove Fishman's, but again, it doesn't really serve the story and ends up just being distracting because the civil rights movement is a much bigger deal than anyone else's problems in this movie.

I know I'm being harsh, but I'm just annoyed at what I felt like was a squandered opportunity to make something truly beautiful. Now let me talk about the good things. Elisa and Fishman such a fascinating couple that there's really no need to focus on other people in order to maintain interest. Sally Hawkins is so expressive and charming and Doug Jones brings so much life to what is essentially just the Creature from the Black Lagoon that they're immediately likable and sympathetic. I love that neither of them can speak and therefore must express their love through music and visuals, because film is a visual medium and so many romance films tend to be just sitting and talking. It reminds me of something like City Lights, where dialogue isn't necessary to convey a connection. I also love many aspects of the world that Del Toro has created. I love that Elisa lives above a gorgeous movie theater (which I wish had a lot more screen time. When she finds Fishman watching the movie I got very emotional.), and the production design in general is absolutely perfect. The colors are rich and beautiful, and the heavy use of water creates an even greater sense of wonder. The music, whether it be the score or the selected songs, is also perfectly fitting to the whimsical world of the film. All of the acting is great, even when the characters are underwritten, because Del Toro had all the right actors in mind when writing the screenplay. I also really like how casually the film handles sexuality, not letting it have any sort of stigma, whether it's Elisa and Fishman or just Elisa. If I were forced to give a thumbs up/thumbs down, it actually would be a thumbs up, because of the romance and the unique world, it would just be a very slight thumbs up because of all the other stuff.

Now, I like to try and think of ways to fix movies that I feel have problems, because otherwise I'm just sitting around complaining about things without actually being constructive at all. While I'm sure I'm oversimplifying the solution on this one, I'd really like to see a cut of this film with only the scenes that feature Elisa and/or Fishman. It would give the film so much more focus and would probably fix a lot of its pacing issues. It would cause the film to probably be about 45 minutes shorter, but perhaps that time could be spent having more scenes that build and explore the connection between the two lovers. Let's see the movie that this deserved to be.

I'd still recommend this movie (again, slight thumbs up), but just know that there's gonna be a lot of time spent on stuff that doesn't really matter.

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