Shaping The Shape of Water Characters
The Shape of Water is a story we’ve all seen before. It’s a basic forbidden romance, with some science fiction dashed in, yet I couldn’t help fall in love with the film. After I recovered from what I witnessed in the theater, I realized it was the characters that made the movie for me.
In the past, I tried to write something similar to this on The Wolf of Wall Street. My concept was that a character isn’t bad writing bad because they’re a bad person. Here, we see this with Michael Shannon’s character, Richard Strickland. Strickland was evil to the core, but by god was he a great character. His desperation to get his job done was admirable but at the end of the day, you knew he was sleazy and Elisa needed to stay away from him. Once again, Del Toro had no problem with obviously stating that the all-American white guy was the villain. It worked incredibly well and definitely added to the suspense of the movie.
Clearly, The Shape of Water was all about Elisa Esposito (Sally Hawkins) and Fish Man (according to IMDb, this Doug Jones character is named Amphibian Man but I’ve been calling him Fish Man for the past four months, so catch me dead changing names now.) Two people who are able to overcome their language barrier and fall in love. There’s really nothing special about that, but as characters they are unique and exciting.
Bull Productions
The longing between the two characters were good. Usually, in monster movies, it’s a one sided attraction, or it ends tragically. Not to to give spoilers but for once, everything works out, and the romance is definitely mutual. Elisa’s charm is what makes her. We are immediately introduced to what kind of person she is, she’s well mannered and self sufficient, but she’s also kind and caring. Her moments of selfishness are well within reason and as an overall character, she’s appealing to every lonely woman.
Fish Man, beautiful Fish Man with his sculpted ass, was a trip in its own. Though he pretty much stayed in water the whole time, Fish Man’s patience and curiosity was so easily displayed and immensely helped move along the story. Between body language and the minimal sign language he learned, viewers knew that this being was the perfect match for Elisa. A gentle soul who could strike fear in one’s eyes. At the end of the day, Fish Man’s portrayal of love is obvious even if some viewers don’t necessarily “get it.”
The cast was mostly moved along by six people, leaving us with three side characters. Giles (Richard Jenkins), Zelda (Octavia Spenser), and Dr. Hoffstetler (Michael Stuhlbarg) were amazing support characters. Giles is a kindred spirit, similar to Elisa. He’s gay and a struggling artist, longing for his own form of intimacy. Zelda is a smart woman never appreciated by her husband and clearly no longer wants to be taken advantage of. Dr. Hoffstetler, without giving big spoilers, is quick-witted, but more importantly, compassionate, something we rarely see from male characters, let alone side characters.
I urge everybody to see The Shape of Water not because it’s some ground breaking story, but because the characters are life like, exciting, and something great to experience. Also, if that’s not enough for you, Elisa and Fish Man totally do the do.
