Movie #8 of 100: "The Shape of Water"

Movie #8 of 100: “The Shape of Water”

Overall Thoughts:

It only took me eight movies, but I finally got to my first Best Picture winner, and unlike some other entries in that group (I’m looking at YOU “Crash”), “The Shape of Water” was a delight in every conceivable way.

For starters, the performances in the movie were all top notch. While I’ll get more into that later when I reveal my favorite performance of all, a lot of credit has to be given to Sally Hawkins, whose Elisa was a distinctive and wonderfully nuanced character, despite the fact that she doesn’t speak a line of dialogue in the movie.

Her artful grace as she signs words to her friends and colleagues was a treat to watch, and one of the movie’s most distinctive features.

Of course, no collection of thoughts on the film would be complete without praising the work of Guillermo del Toro, who has been thrilling me with movies since I first saw “Hellboy” all those many moons ago. I have not seen all of his movies, but he has put together quite a resume, as “The Shape of Water” may rank right up there with “Pacific Rim” and “Pan’s Labyrinth” in my ranking of top del Toro flicks.

The vivid colors and visuals that are the hallmark of del Toro films are all present here, and with painstaking detail, the director creates a world that simply feels right, and feels like one that you want to be in, even as the amphibious creature unnerves you with its realism and its unpredictability.

Finally, praise must be heaped upon the score of Alexandre Desplat, who’s been on a real roll lately with his incredible work in really strong films, including “The Imitation Game” and “Isle of Dogs.”

Favorite Performance:

I have not seen “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri,” but I get the sense that when I do, I’m going to be even more irritated that Richard Jenkins did not win Best Supporting Actor at the Academy Awards for this film (and this is coming from someone who has always picked Sam Rockwell as the “guy I’d love to play me in a movie”).

Jenkins, who plays Elisa’s confidant and accomplice, gives probably my favorite performance that he’s ever given, playing Giles with a mix of endearing honesty, good humor, and desperation at improving his lot in life.

That sadness and tension that Giles feels in his heart as he deals with the disappointments, joys, and frightening moments of life are all apparent in Jenkins’ acting, but he never loses his core optimism that the world can be a good place, and that quality is something that is continuing to linger in my mind as I think about the film.

It’s blindingly obvious that Hawkins did a great job as Elisa, Michael Shannon jumped off the screen as Richard Strickland, and that Octavia Spencer is a goddess among mortals, but for me, Jenkins’ turn in this movie narrowly edges out ahead of a field of truly incredible work.

Favorite Scene:

In the interest of avoiding spoilers, I won’t reveal my favorite little moment in the film, which is part of a larger scene in which Elisa is beaming with happiness after spending time with the “asset,” so instead I’ll say that the scene in which Elisa aims to help the creature escape captivity is my favorite, simply because of the fact that it so deftly mixed the undercover agents’ attempts at springing the creature free with the amateur-planning of Elisa and Giles, who get an unwitting assist from Zelda in the process.

Any scene involving Giles and Elisa talking for an extended period, whether at the diner or in their apartment building, was worth rewinding again as well, if for nothing else than the way it captures you in the spirit of the early 1960’s, when things seemed simpler and we were a country fighting a just war against oppressors, instead of worrying that we’re being oppressed by those in power.

Naturally, the scene in which Elisa forces Giles to say, out loud, what she is signing to him as she tries to explain why she wants to help the creature escape was a painful and remarkable moment in the movie. It got plenty of attention during awards season, and with very good reason.

Stars: 4.5 out of 5