2017: The Shape of Water

Elisa Esposito's life is fairly routine and lonely. Her only friends are her neighbor, Giles, and her coworker Zelda, with whom she cleans at night in a laboratory. All three are rejected by society: Elisa for her inability to speak verbally, Giles for his sexual orientation, and Zelda for her skin color. Then Elisa and Zelda discover a strange humanoid sea creature imprisoned in the lab, with whom Elisa develops a deep connection. Upon learning that the creature is set to be killed and dissected for research, Elisa recruits her friends to free him.

I have very mixed feelings about this film, as I'm sure many people do. It's an extremely bizarre premise and story, and I can't really tell whether I liked it or not, but I thought it was filmed beautifully. The theme of water was everywhere - in the fluid camera movements, the lighting, the sets, the soundtrack - and it worked quite well. The costume and effects used to bring the creature to life were very effective, and all of the performances were phenomenal. Mainly, I wasn't a huge fan of the strange love story between Elisa and the creature, especially at the end. I would have liked to see more of them getting to know each other and learning to communicate. She brings him eggs and teaches him the ASL sign for "egg", and like four other signs; I wanted more of that. I would have believed in the love story more if the Amphibian Man had more of a personality.

I'm pretty sure that, like the previous year's winner, this film won Best Picture for its representation. Once again, I have mixed feelings about that as well. It was quite refreshing to see a film with a clear female protagonist finally win Best Picture for the first time since 2004. I appreciated that all four of the main characters the audience was supposed to root for were from groups who tend to be under-represented in Hollywood: a disabled woman, an African-American woman, a gay man, and a sea monster. The only problem with that, which I'm sure was not the filmmakers' intent, is that it could potentially be interpreted as equating the first three groups with the last one, implying that they are not fully human. I think the filmmakers were trying to show that the creature was more human than the white male able-bodied human villain who was trying to destroy him, which is a theme that has often been explored by Disney movies: Belle crying, "He's no monster, Gaston; you are!" in Beauty and the Beast and Clopin asking, "Who is the monster and who is the man?" about Frollo and Quasimodo in The Hunchback of Notre Dame come to mind. The difference is, in those cases, the person interpreted as a monster was actually human, whereas the creature in this movie, while pretty awesome, is clearly not human. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for looking beyond outward appearances. I even like the idea of someone falling in love with a person who looks like a monster and isn't going to transform into a handsome prince. All I'm saying is I don't like the implication that Elisa has to end up with Amphibian Man because her disability makes it impossible for "normal" people to fall in love with her. I'm virtually positive that that's not what the film was trying to say, but it's certainly a valid interpretation. I realize that too often people with disabilities are portrayed as having no sexuality at all, which is wrong, but is it really a step forward to show someone with a disability only having sex with a creepy monster thing? Without spoiling too much, I think the ending could have salvaged this questionable message, but if anything it made things worse by not even letting Elisa consent to what happens.

Overall, this movie has a lot of good things about it, but the whole love story thing just really doesn't work for me. I'm not sad I watched it, but I feel like it could have been better, which is similar to how I felt last year. More representation in Best Picture winners is a great new trend, and I hope it continues indefinitely, but I also hope the execution improves.