I Watch Films: The Shape Of Water
Guillermo Del Toro’s film about a secret government laboratory in Baltimore and the forbidden romance that grows there. Also about sixties spying, and a few good jokes.
A mute cleaner falls in love with the asset, a captured Amazonian humanoid fish-creature who may be a god. He certainly has healing powers. As might be expected the government wants to vivisect him to learn how his amphibiousness works, in an effort to get an advantage in the space race. The Soviets, inevitably, have an agent in the facility. Hijinks ensure.
Here are some of the things I like about it: The view of a secret government facility from the bottom up (two of the main characters are the cleaners and they spend time with the cooks). That the heroine is mute, and she works around her disability, making it part of her life and character without dominating either them or the plot. The ongoing use of water and various shades of green as colour motifs. That everything the villain attempts turns against him, and that although he is personally and institutionally powerful he cannot see his own or the institutions flaws, which is why everything goes poorly for him.
Also a woman fall in love with a fish monster and they have sex. What’s that about?
Watch This: For a clever, assured, science fiction romance film
Don’t Watch This: If romance with fish monsters sounds a bit much
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