And that’s why the original title of the screenplay when I wrote it was A Fairy Tale for Troubled Times, because I think that this is a movie that is incredibly pertinent and almost like an antidote to a lot of the cynicism and disconnect that we experience day to day. The movie is about connecting with “the other.” You know, the idea of empathy, the idea of how we do need each other to survive. You can’t exactly call it political, but its social commentary has political ramifications. The lines aren’t hard to draw: Though The Shape of Water is set half a century ago, it’s obviously meant as a commentary - from a Mexican director, no less - on the noxious nature of ideologies that leave no room for empathy. The film’s only villain is played by Michael Shannon: an angry, bitter, cruel boss-man who’s certain of his own superiority to everyone who isn’t a white man like himself, and whose religion hasn’t helped him learn anything like love. Hawkins’s character is a mute woman, Jenkins’s is a closeted gay man, Spencer’s is a black woman, and the fish-man is, well, a fish-man. In talking about the film throughout awards season, del Toro has been clear that he sees it as an allegorical film about embracing the other. Though it’s not a movie about the movies, it certainly calls to Hollywood history for its look, its story, and many of its character details.Īnd yet, it’s thoroughly a movie made for 2018. The Shape of Water wears its classic Hollywood influences on its sleeve, up to and including a story that openly riffs on the 1954 sci-fi-horror classic The Creature From the Black Lagoon, a black-and-white dance sequence straight out a Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire picture, and a main location set over a cinema that’s playing Henry Koster’s 1960 biblical epic The Book of Ruth. And for films like The Artist (2012) and Argo (2013), that proclivity to praise films about moviemaking resulted in Best Picture awards. The Oscars, after all, are professional guild awards that Hollywood awards to its own. It’s a beautifully shot movie with a story that follows the traditional arcs of a fairy tale romance.Īnd it’s also a tribute to “the power of cinema,” something the Academy loves to honor. Though the past few years of nominees were smaller independent features like Moonlight and Spotlight - the kinds of picks that genuinely surprised many prognosticators - The Shape of Water feels in many ways like a classic Academy pick. It also makes perfect sense as a Best Picture winner in 2018. The Shape of Water, from Guillermo del Toro, is a beautiful adult fairy tale about a fish-man
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