The Shape of Water (Dir. Guillermo del Toro, 2h 3m)

At the heart of The Shape of Water lies a key truth-Guillermo del Toro has always loved the monster; throughout his film, between his independent arthouse pictures, including Cronos and The Devil's Backbone, to his more popularist English language features, from comic book adaptions Hellboy and Blade II to the animesque Pacific Rim, there is a reverence, a deepfelt affection of the monstrous, from its most horrific to its most sympathetic. To tell a love story between the monster, in this case, a fishlike man portrayed in all his aquatic, otherworldly beauty by Del Toro's go to monster-man, Doug Jones, and mute, but fiercely independent young woman, Elisa, played by Sally Hawkins, is thus a logical step forward; yet, it's a step that retains all of the searing beauty, and indicates a growing maturity in Del Toro's storytelling, as he explores love, loss, and otherness in a way that few films can match.

Whilst it would be simple to regard The Shape of Water as a refraction, an alternate ending to horror classic, The Creature from the Black Lagoon-indeed, Del Toro has admitted that Shape of Water originates in this wish to see the monster and the heroine have a happy ending-there is a tenderness, a gentleness in Jones' "fishman", a far cry from the rapacious and violent Gill-Man and indeed a shared bond, a relationship that is entirely missing from the former film. This is best seen in the design of the creature-in a word, the creature is erotic-from its facial structure, its soft, full lips, to the well-reported fact that Del Toro spent years ensuring that the creature's posterior was suitably aesthetically pleasing. Ahem.
This more erotic sensibility is equally seen in the film's thematic exploration of sex, and sexual relationships-whilst the film retains the fairytale nature of a lot of Del Toro's work, this is no longer a childhood fable, of childhood fears and dreams, as he himself puts it, but a more adult, more violent, more sexually aware parable-for both Elisa and the creature, there is a lingering eroticism, from the opening scenes, including Elisa masturbating in the bath, to its denouement. One of the film's defining shots, of the two making love in a flooded bathroom, even as water drips down into the cinema that Elisa lives above, has a sensuality, an erotic beauty that few films featuring human-human relationships can match, with the sated gaze that she greets the camera, and closeted housemate Giles (Richard Jenkins), over the monster's shoulder, is at turns a poignant, erotic, and disturbing image.
The resonance of their relationship, however, is more than a simple girl-meets-fish-monster relationship-it is a story of two outsiders meeting a kindred spirit that completes them-whilst this is a theme that resonates in multiple works, from Beauty and the Beast to Del Toro's own work, in Elisa and the creature, there is a sense of two outcasts, one a mute young orphan, who communicates entirely through sign-language, the other a creature at once regarded as a freak, a danger, and a tool to the American Space Race. The slow growth of their relationship, from initial mutual curiosity, to a slowly growing relationship, leading to his liberation, and their love turning from emotional to physical, is perfectly paced, as Elisa begins to realise that the creature is much more intelligent-and more human-than anyone realises. 

This sense of two people who are "other", "incomplete", in Elisa's own words, fills the film. Elisa herself is mute, but her disability is never maligned, there is no sense of tokenism, and indeed one of the film's funniest scenes uses ASL, which is subtitled, at the cost of an able bodied person. This is a film about minorities, directed by a man from a minority background. Around them are a group of people who are also "other", from Giles, who represents both the closeted Americans of the early 1960s, unable, or indeed forbidden to love, and the changing form of American culture, to the ethnic minority cleaners, who represent the casual racism of the period. All of these characters, together with a dedicated, and selfless scientist who cannot bring himself to kill the creature despite orders from his superiors, work against the villainous head of the facility that Elisa cleans at, a white, suburban white man, Strickland, (Michael Shannon), who, in true Del Toro fashion, is a corrupted, and eventually, undone figure, and his death is a satisfying ending to the character.

Despite these new elements, throughout the film, there is Del Toro's familiar warmth, his innate ability to tell stories of magical realism, his usual panache at producing images that are both haunting and beautiful, from the opening shot of furniture floating through a flooded room, to its final, perfect image, its happy-ever-after that brings the film to a satisfying, beautiful conclusion. It is a film that explores both the romantic, and monstrous, a perfect encapsulation of Del Toro's artistic and popularist sensibilities, a film acts as love letter to cinema, to the monsters of the medium and others beyond, and to the idea of love itself.
It is a film that richly and rightly deserves the Best Picture Oscar, a film that celebrates difference, and love, and how simply gaps between people, no matter how different they are, can be bridged, even with the simple pleasures of life, with music, eggs and shared time. It is a fairytale-of an older, wiser man than his earlier films-but still a fairytale, a thing of wonder and beauty, timeless, and an instant, undeniable classic.

Rating: Must-See