H.P. Lovecraft's Beauty and the Beast

Rating: 8/10 (20 February 2018)

There is something endearing about director Guillermo Del Toro - a childlike enthusiasm, a genuine passion for cinema in general and genre movies in particular - which sets him apart from both the cash-grab cynicism and the workmanlike indifference of many of his peers. The Shape of Water has the peculiar Del Toro touch - a sincerity which makes this fantasy romance work.
Set during the Cold War, the movie follows the relationship between mute janitor Elisa (Sally Hawkins) and a mysterious amphibian man (Doug Jones) kept prisoner in the government facility where she works; as brutal Strickland (Michael Shannon) plans to vivisect the creature, Elisa decides to free it with the help of her friends Zelda (Octavia Spencer) and Giles (Richard Jenkins) and the cooperation of a sympathetic scientist who happens to be a Russian spy (Michael Stuhlbarg).
This is a beautiful film, shot with grace and style, dominated by a sea-green color palette, with impeccable set design and costumes. Del Toro's films feel visually rich without showing off; there are no unmotivated camera movements, no "five minutes steady cam shot just because I can". I was amazed to learn this movie has a meagre (for Hollywood standards) 20 million dollars budget.
Hawkins is luminous and compelling as the lead. Del Toro's regular Jones is wonderfully expressive - his amphibian being has a physical presence only practical effects and make-up can achieve.
Shannon's Strickland is an effective villain, with his cattle prod, rotten fingers and a sociopathic streak somehow flying under the radar of his Norman Rockwell family. Del Toro has this gift for creating antagonists who are over-the-top horrible (see also the Captain in Pan's Labyrinth) and yet, strangely enough, they don't end up as boring caricatures. Spencer and Jenkins bring pathos and humanity to the potentially cliched roles of the sassy black friend and the quirky gay neighbour.
The beginning of the relationship between Elisa and the creature, while lovely, feels a little rushed - too quick and unproblematic on the part of Elisa, who is cooking eggs and playing Benny Goodman for her amphibian pal before you can say "The Shadow over Innsmouth". This cavalier attitude towards supernatural threats is also part of the Del Toro touch, I guess, with the kind of unfazed acceptance of the unusual and weird you usually find in fairy tales.
7,5/10