The Shape of Water
Saturday, February 10, 2018 3:20:16 PM | (Age Not Specified)
There is much that is right about The Shape of Water. The cinematography is magical. The opening scene alone is worth the price of admission for its dreamy, surrealistic rendering. The entire film has a bluish tint that is in keeping with the movie’s aqua theme.
The setting is the 1950s, replete with 1957 Chevrolets, popular music, and references to Bonanza and Gilligan’s Island.—fun for those of us old enough to remember the 50s.
The love story is strangely endearing—not nearly as slimy and horrific as I imagined.
It’s a solid film. I give it four out of five stars; and I would not squabble with others who would give is a solid five-star rating.
What disturbs me about the movie is what has troubled me about our culture as a whole: the ubiquity of fantasy. All the top-billed films these days are fantasy. So are the bestselling books. Even the political news is referred to as fake or fanciful. The problem with so much fantasy is that we risk accepting the fantastic as a substitute for reality. It is not. When a teen goes on a shooting spree, it is not because he is a fantasy superhero; it is because he is delusional—and that is the reality of it.
Because The Shape of Water is fantasy—very much like all the hugely popular Marvel movies of the day—the characters tend to perfectly good or perfectly evil. Consequently, we all know how the movie will end before it gets started.
There are also a few nuances that less sophisticated audiences may miss but are important to point out. The film is really about the value of all beings: the socially awkward, the mute, even the monstrous. That is a nod to all the maladroit people in the world (especially teens) who don’t quite fit in and, yet, would like to be valued in a society where beauty, talent, and power trump eccentricity. The problem is that some may internalize the message as being something nefarious—like an endorsement to be racist, anti-social, xenophobic, misanthropic, or, worse, sociopathic.