Real love is messy, troublesome, dangerous, exciting, adventurous, palpable, nervous but never complicated – that’s 'The Shape of Water' for you!!!

…and if it’s complicated then it’s not love it’s a God damn friggin arrangement. And Jimmy Kimmel summarized this afore-mentioned nugget of jagged truth quite well tonight while hosting the Oscars second time running, that in this particular year of #MeToo, #TimesUp movement men generally everywhere have messed up so badly so much that women now are more than ready and prefer to fall in love with an ichthyological species i.e. a FishMan rather than men anywhere and this is what exactly got rewarded with the Best Director and Best Picture Oscar trophy going to ‘The Shape of Water’, a real gutsy movie with characters who manifest archetypes and not stereotypes.

So let’s begin with the characters then, shall we?

Firstly, we have Eliza (Sally Hawkins) a name by the way that phonetically and etymologically reminds one of Alice and Elixir, both symbols of life, love, laughter, living and longing. Although she herself living in a crammed, dingy apartment above an old worn out movie theatre of the 50’s, now unvisited by its patrons, hence who gets free movie tickets now and then to watch movies, is a shy, reserved, literally living a quiet life because she cannot speak due to some child abuse which she was subjected to wherein her vocal chords were removed from her body and now all there is left in their place at the long stretched scars reminding her many a times that she has no voice and hence no identity. This abuse, going along with the fact that she was an orphan, has left a trauma so sharp and so deep on her mentally, physically and emotionally that she considers herself incomplete, imperfect and incomprehensible, hence she feels that she is not fit or cut out for any relation with any man, anywhere whatsoever. Hence her pleasuring of herself in the bathtub every morning and simply eke out a living by literally scraping through her life by washing and cleaning floors. Wow! This is some characterization of a hurt, left out, misfit outsider.

Then we have the avuncular, elderly Giles (Richard Jenkins) Eliza’s neighbor, an illustrator by profession but who now has gotten fired from a plush corporate job due to his secret tumbling out of the closet that he is a gay, a faggot and that too during an era when such a sexuality preference or choice by anyone was hated upon bitterly more so back then than it is still today. He is a man who in order to get accepted in the society had to repress his sexual choice and thus suppress his libido so much that he too feels that he is an inappropriate being who cannot intermingle with anyone freely, openly and happily ever. Thus he too has closed himself in his own world and finds some laughter and solace with Eliza when they listen to some music or watch some movies together. Still, he’s sad and depressed from within since he cannot find an outlet to vent his art and talent and his subverted and persecuted emotions. A man breathing daily but waiting to exhale.

Here then arrives Zelda (Octavia Spencer) an African-American and an highly irresistible woman due to her humaneness, warmth, affection and who ceaselessly chats enough for both Eliza and herself at that 60s style government bunker cum laboratory, since the movie is set in 1962, where they both work together and are good work friends of each other but Zelda is more of an overbearing pal and protector of the orphaned Eliza, thus forming a bond stronger than any normal friendship. Now, Zelda in her personal life is peeved and piqued beyond imagination due to her ingrate of a husband and hence she keeps on carping despairingly about his unresponsiveness and good for nothing existence. She too feels that since is in such a rut of a relationship, then she too must have many deformities and shortcomings as a person and it’s good that she doesn’t have a presence in many people’s lives or else they would have pitied her more and understood her less, thus letting her become a joke of every conversation.

Now enters, the villain of the story, a fearsome, prejudiced, bigoted, racist, highly vindictive government agent Colonel Richard Strickland (Michael Shannon) who when put in charge of this Amazonian fish humanoid creature found in the Amazon river and jungle and brought to this secret government facility in Baltimore, to try to figure how this creature could help then get that one upmanship in the overt cold war rivalry with USSR covertly. He is a meglomaniacal sociopath, an a grade narcissist who is so conservative in his religious beliefs and values that he considers it an affront and insult that this Fishman is considered as God in his local environment by the natives there. In one scene, he that if ever anyone sees God, the He would surely look like him, this while gesturing towards himself because God has made him in His own Image. Hence all Strickland wants to do is experiment, exploit and explore this creature from the soggy, mushy, moist environment of the South Americas and try to get to know that one secret within it which would help his nation the United States of America beat the Rooskies and win the Cold War. So, Strickland goes all out beating, thrashing and punishing every which way he could to hide his own lack of faith in his God’s creation and hurt what he thinks shouldn’t exist on this God’s Green Earth.

And finally, we have the creature of the feature, the green goblin shaped Fishman (Dough Jones) portrayed in fully-gilled prosthetic regalia, an alien-reptile with webbings, scales, spine, very bad teeth and no voice or speech but only grunts and gluttural noises for communication but who is highly intelligent and knows how to converse his feelings and emotions in different ways which is learning the sign language taught to him by that one affectionate person in his new prison, Eliza. Always kept inside water filled containers, in a dank, dark room though lighted around by the Fishman’s bioluminence, this shows how the scientists surrounding this creature lack in understanding it and thus puzzled as to how to take advantage of it. Plus, the Boss of this Fishman is an army man who is itching to cut and carve out this sea monster according to him, yes dissect him thus basically kill him so that it could serve his country the way he thinks he does. This FishMan scared and afraid of this new environment finds some peace when Eliza shows up and brings boiled eggs for him as his breakfast and plays songs for him and teaches him sign language to communicate with him.

So basically, this is what you have in the plot overall, a poor mute woman, a poor black woman, a poor gay man, and a so-called freak of nature versus a God-and-country white fascist who buys a Cadillac because it represents “the future” and is shown in bed mechanically grunting over his impassive blonde Stepford wife. Whoa! Talk about stacking the deck.

And this is where the genius, the auteur, the sincerity towards the story, script and screenplay of Guillermo Del Toro steps in. If he wanted to he could have made this B-Grade sounding movie plot into either a drama for family and friends or an out and out sci-fi dystopian sort of a flick. But what he did is what got him his Oscar Trophy, that is he made this story for basically what it is, a love story, a romance between the two most unlikeliest but obvious characters, a human woman and FishMan but also two mute, silent entities unwanted and unrecognized by people in general but who understood the pain and suffering of each other so much that they were ready to go ahead and save each other. And that’s what every true Love Story is all about. Del Toro kept his vision of this uncharacteristic lead romantic pair for what they both originally are a slender, craggly, humanoid fish and a lady with huge sexual appetite with possessiveness for her beloved ones.

Overall, ‘The Shape of Water’ movie is one magnificent, magical realism movie, a pure imagination of the director canvased and portrayed with artistry, empathy and sensuality. It’s an adult fairytale love story between a girl and a gill, both of whom are so much in love with each other that they throw a lifeline to the other because this is exactly what love does to any creature anywhere. Plus the overall treatment of the movie with wings on heels music by Alexandre Desplat is ecstatic to say the least. But the star of the movie is indeed Sally Hawkins wordless performance that holds the movie together and keeps it bounded and grounded with wild fascination and flight of imagination filled with emotional tension that really does leave everyone speechless. Sally’s character is gentle, curious, shy vulnerable, fearless and furious, a woman filled with humanity towards everyone she meets – no matter to which species the other being belongs.

           All in all, a movie that hails love as the glorious beacon of hope and strength in times dark and bleak.