Love Defies Stereotypes: The Powerful Message of The Shape of Water

 The Shape of Water, produced by Guillermo Del Toro, was released in August 2017 for the 74^th Venice International Film Festival.  This story follows a woman named Elisa as she meets and befriends and falls in love with an amphibian creature in the lab that she works at.

This film follows a left of center viewpoint and puts emphasis on the shape of love and how it has the ability to take many forms.  It also brings in issues such as race, disability, and conservation to the forefront, challenging the beliefs and viewpoints of those watching the film.  The Shape of Water, being rated R, is not for young children or younger teenagers.  This movie caters to a more mature audience with thought provoking scenes and themes.

The main character Elisa was made mute when she was a baby when someone cut her vocal chords, making much of the movie’s communication sign language used by her and speaking through those around her.  When she discovers the creature in the lab, she begins to befriend him by giving him eggs and playing him music.  She also begins to teach him sign language in order to communicate with her.  We learn that the American government found this creature and plan to experiment on, and eventually kill and dissect it.  This effort is headed by a man named Strickland who is portrayed as a racist, crude, violent, and demeaning man.  

Strickland speaks to Elisa and her African American friend Zelda using derogatory terms and sexual innuendos in almost every scene together.  At one time he asks if Zelda knows what God looks like, and proceeds to tell her that he looks like him, maybe a bit like her, but definitely more like him.  We can see that he is referring to the color of his skin and also his gender.  Much of his characters story line is also focused on “America.”  He feels the need to be the perfect American man with a Cadillac, wife, two children, and a white picket fence.  He is willing to do anything for his country and believes that America is a superpower and that nothing else compares.  This logic makes him start to slowly go crazy, as we see by the end of the movie.

When Elisa finds out that Strickland plans to kill the Amphibian Man, she begins to hatch a plan to help him escape.  One memorable scene from the movie is when Elisa is speaking to Giles, her father figure, as she is trying to convince him to help her.  He believes she is crazy and that she shouldn’t care about a freak in a lab. She signs/says to him, “What am I? I move my mouth, like him. I make no sound, like him. What does that make me? All that I am, all that I’ve ever been, brought me here to him…  When he looks at me, the way he looks at me, he does not know what I lack or how I am incomplete. He sees me for what I am, as I am. He’s happy to see me every time, every day.”  This scene conveys so much power and really captivates us to feel the same way about this creature that is being tortured.  As Elisa begins to fall in love with him, we also begin to feel for this creature and see what she is seeing. transcends barriers and shape.

In the last scene of the movie as the Amphibian Man and Elisa are in the water, we hear Giles narrating this, “…When I think of her, of Elisa, the only thing that comes to my mind is a poem. Whispered by someone in love hundreds of years ago.  Unable to perceive the shape of you, I find you all around me, your presence fills my eyes with your love, it humbles my heart for you are everywhere.” Throughout this movie, the meaning of trust, care, and love show us that those feelings and emotions are able to transcend barriers and shape and become something truly beautiful.