Genre: Fantasy | Thriller | Romance
Starring: Sally Hawkins, Michael Shannon, Richard Jenkins and Octavia Spencer | Director: Guillermo del Toro
The Oscar nominations have arrived and ‘The Shape of Water‘ has swept the board with an impressive 13 nominations. It would also be no surprise if this film also went away with most of them in the bag as this stunning creation brings a new light to modern fairy tales.
This story focuses on the character of Elisa in the year 1962, a government laboratory cleaner who has been mute almost all her life. Everyday of her life has the same routine until a magnificent, unique creature is mysteriously brought into her workplace as the lab’s classified secret. During Elisa’s work hours, her befriends the creature and soon develops the will to save him from his tragic fate.
Straight from the first scene we see in the movie, the cinematography is flawless and continues to be at an amazing standard throughout the entire film. Every shot is beautiful to see and has such detail; not one shot looks out of place. From the quality of this film, from start to finish, it is understandable why this is a piece of work that director, Guillermo del Toro, is most proud of.
Not only that, but the visual effects used within this film are incredible, easily the effects used in order to create the underwater creature, who main character, creates a bond with. The combined use of CGI and timeless makeup effects to create the unknown creature was perfect and looked almost like something that could be real, effortlessly fitting with the look of the movie as a whole. Even with the big, innocent eyes on the creature, the creators were still able to avoid a cute, Disney vibe look which would have made the story feel a lot different. With him being made to look so authentic due to the visual effects, this definitely caused the audience to invest in the romantic tale seriously as the concept of a woman falling for an amphibious man could have turned comedic. However, the direction and portrayal kept a serious and believable tone to the story.
The role of Eliza played by Sally Hawkins is something that definitely deserves to not be over looked this award season. Hawkins’ ability to illustrate such a connection with other characters and also gain a connection from the audience is phenomenal as it is all done while not saying a single word. She is able to perform such emotion through body language alone which imaginable, can be difficult, as most emotion is usually portrayed through tone of voice or words characters use.
Even with Hawkins’ performance, there are no underdogs when it comes to the cast of this film. All the actors give 110% effort into their roles, especially within Michael Shannon’s character, giving the audience hatred towards his character with ease. Richard Jenkins has the capability to hold the entire story and cast together and along with Octavia Spencer bringing a likeable, strong character to light, the film is complete with an impressive cast.
‘The Shape of Water‘ allows audiences to fully become invested in the characters and also the story. The plot is extremely well paced allowing great character development and story progression. Every scene has a clear purpose therefore audiences are less inclined to get bored during this film making ‘The Shape of Water‘ one to be remembered.
Although this film has been rated a 5/5, there is a slight issue in terms of connection between Eliza ‘Sally Hawkins‘ and the creature. For a plot that is solely about these two falling for each other, a more stronger, deeper connection would have made this film perfect. This is a very minor issue though and definitely isn’t enough to effect the rating of this movie as this deserves to win many awards in the next few months.
- ‘The Shape of Water‘ DVD, Blu-ray and Digital HD from Amazon Video and iTunes is estimated for March 2018.
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