ALEX FARBA

Sally Hawkins, speechless before Doug Jones' extraordinary amphibian charm

by Alex Deleon

Forced myself to go out into the icy Budapest cold tonight whenk I found that the hottest Oscar contender "The Shape of Water" was playing at the Művész Art Cinema, only one tram stop away. 

Immediate reaction. 

The Shape of Water"is a Self indulgent Shapeless piece of confused unanchored crap tied to the fishiest script of the year. Even outdoes Three Billboards in script fishiness.

It will probably sweep the Oscars because it has enough pretentious chaos to make sclerotic Oscar voters believe that they're the ones who are dumb if they don't get it. Get it? -- Señor del Toro has concocted a gigantic piece of over the eyes wool pulling with this souped up retread of Creature from the Blue Lagoon in a pseudo Cold War setting. But you gotta give Sally Hawkins credit for getting into the bathtub naked with this slimy armor plated watery creature.

Official release blurb. "At a top secret research facility in the 1960s, a lonely janitor (bathroom cleanup maid Sally who is speech challenged) forms a unique sign language relationship with an amphibious creature that is being held in captivity.". The basic premise that a creature, half man, half fish, could be used as a secret weapon against the Russians is do dumb that it sinks the ship before it is launched. There is no attempt to strike any sense of credibility anywhere. What director delToro seems to be going for is more like a series of dazzling celluloid  circus acts with little connection between them.The only natural actor in the whole picture is Octavia Spencer, as Hawkins co-cleanup woman in numerous washroom scenes. She was also memorable in Hidden Figures, 2016.

By all rights the real Oscar sweeper should be Darkest Hour for Best Film, with Gary Oldman as Winston Churchill, best actor by a country mile, but I wouldn't be surprised if they pick Doug Jones who was del Toro's Amphibian man in a fish suit out of sheer perverseness.  The only line missing at the end of this shapeless fishy mess to pull it together   would have been "Gort, berenga!"