Guillermo Del Toro’s Best Picture-winning Cold War fable still spins magic with a new Criterion package
Elisa (Sally Hawkins), a mute janitor at a top-secret research facility in 1960s Baltimore, leads a quiet, lonely life brightened by friendships with coworker Zelda (Octavia Spencer) and reclusive artist Giles (Richard Jenkins). The arrival of a mysterious amphibious Creature (Doug Jones) floods Elisa with a new purpose. She begins a caring bond with the captive “asset,” whose mute isolation mirrors Elisa’s own: a relationship that gradually blossoms into something romantic and defiant of societal norms. As the US Government plans to kill the Creature for research and to prevent it from falling into Soviet hands, Elisa enlists Zelda and Giles in a daring rescue. However, Strickland (Michael Shannon), the facility’s ruthless head, is determined to enforce order and stop them at any cost.
Guillermo Del Toro’s films captivate with lead characters who challenge the very fabric of the worlds they inhabit. From the imaginative Ofelia in Pan’s Labyrinth’s Franco-era Spain to the defiant Pinocchio in Mussolini-era Italy, Del Toro’s protagonists possess an innate drive to defy the oppressive norms around them. Even characters like Edith Cushing in Crimson Peak or Stan Carlisle in Nightmare Alley, shaped by rigid, immobilizing societies like 1880s high society or Depression-era America, pivot against the currents of their environments. This rebellion bears both beauty and tragedy, transforming the characters and the worlds they disrupt – often at the Atlantean cost of these leads’ unwavering dedication to their ideals.
The world of The Shape of Water is steeped in the lofty ideals of 1960s American exceptionalism, built on a foundation of rigid conformity. Strickland, the story’s villain (yet a hero in any other story), embodies this ideal: a suburban patriarch with a shiny new Cadillac, rewarded by society for enforcing strict order at work and home. In stark contrast, those relegated to society’s margins sustain the very world that ignores them. Giles, a commercial artist, lives on the fringes—pushed out of his ad firm for failing to adapt to photography and for his perceived flaws (Homosexuality? Alcoholism? Take your pick.). Reduced to freelance work, he paints idealized families selling mundane products like green Jell-O, who he struggles to make look even happier even as they sport unnatural, artificial smiles. Elisa and Zelda, a mute woman and a Black woman, toil as unseen janitors in Strickland’s research facility by night, ensuring the spotless environment that daytime workers take for granted. In Del Toro’s Baltimore, perpetually soaked in rain and firelight, the very conformity that America prizes is sustained by the sacrifices of those it refuses to acknowledge—people whose value lies in work that must appear, like magic, without them ever being seen or heard.
While Strickland’s rewarded with his shiny car and suburban home, Elisa, Zelda, and Giles are threatened with punishment if they take any action against the world they live in, even if it’s to get something they desperately want. A mute woman, gay man, and Black woman each have their livelihoods threatened at some point in the film–and whether it’s the torture of an amphibian being in front of them, the eviction of Black customers from a pie shop, or the hosing of Civil Rights demonstrators on TV, they’re are often encouraged to turn a blind eye to others’ suffering if it means their status-quo doesn’t become threatened.
It’s what makes The Shape of Water’s biologically defiant romance resonate even harder on a societal level: that despite the initial instinct to be repulsed by the love that Elisa and the Creature grow to have for one another, it’s the one sincere act within Del Toro’s achingly artificial 1960s America that makes the most sense. It lovingly refers to the technicolor controversies of Douglas Sirk melodramas like All that Heaven Allows as much as it does to the transgressive work of Baltimore’s other defiant resident, John Waters. Elisa and the Creature love each other for all of the flaws that waking society rejects, finding joy and passion in them instead. In one of the most moving usages of American Sign Language in film, Elisa’s gradual building of communication with the Creature allows her to build a physical language and connection with this person that doesn’t rely on an intermediary or highlight a perceived lack of communication on her part. While they may only be small words at first, the Creature is the only being in the film that directly communicates with Elisa the way she communicates with the world. It’s another tender aspect of how neither Elisa nor the Creature deserve this world – but they sincerely deserve each other.
The ripple effect of such dramatic sincerity is evident in the moral transformations of those in Elisa’s life. Zelda gets the courage to openly defy her cowardly husband when he betrays the people she values, while Giles is determined to protect the real, threatened love Elisa and the Creature share after Giles is disillusioned by the bigotry of his one-sided love interest. Even Dmitri (Michael Stuhlbarg), a Russian mole within the facility, is moved by the genuine compassion between them – leading him to take a country-defying stand. While Dmitri sees the Creature as something “intricate and beautiful,” so does he see this love which has thrived regardless of borders and politics.
The romance between Elisa and the Creature is the only thing that makes sense in a world that, for all of its uniformity, makes even less sense the longer we stare at the “ugliness” it tries to cover up. It’s embodied in the rotting fingers on Strickland’s hand, bandaged up and treated by the best medicine society has to offer, yet can’t help but sickeningly rot away as the film goes on. Strickland can’t cope with or understand someone like Elisa. At every turn, he undermines her abilities or fetishizes her disabilities, and believes he can approximate her inherent goodness with a cursory read through The Power of Positive Thinking. Strickland’s only instinct when faced with someone like Elisa is to reduce every aspect of who she is–another part of reality that must bend shape to his will.
But in this world, one that requires people to take specific roles (shapes?), what scares people like Strickland and inspires others like Zelda, Giles, and Dmitri is how Elisa and the Creature’s passion for one another seems inherently boundless. At first, Elisa’s own instinct is to keep the Creature alive in her tiny bathtub, but she grows to realize how their love bursts like water from her flooded bathroom, bound for something as open as the Atlantic Ocean. There are flirtations with tragedy, hearkening back to other Del Toro films that see innocence snuffed out or unmoored from the dangers of life with the deliverance of death. But I’m so grateful that that instinct doesn’t win out here. To do so would be to fall victim in these times to the same quiet compliance of these characters early on in The Shape of Water. Instead, this romance is destined to thrive where land and the petty political squabbles upon them stop, where passions run deep in unpredictable waters.
It’s crushing to say that The Shape of Water’s social relevance looms even greater with America’s incoming administration, but this new release by Criterion will hopefully inspire even more audiences to adopt such steadfast dedication to inspirational ideals in the face of institutional cruelty.
Video/Audio
Criterion presents The Shape of Water in its original 1.85:1 aspect ratio in 4K on the UHD disc and 1080p HD on the accompanying Blu-ray Disc, accompanied by a 5.1-channel surround DTS-HD Master Audio track on both discs. The transfer is up-converted from the film’s 3.4K-resolution digital materials, which were used for the film’s previous 4K UHD from Searchlight Pictures. English SDH subtitles are provided for the feature film.
Like their other fantastic Guillermo Del Toro releases in the Collection, Criterion’s A/V package for The Shape of Water features a reverent transfer for the film. Originally intended to be shot in black-and-white before leaning into the lush colors of Douglas Sirk melodrama, any release of The Shape of Water needs to provide a vibrant palette to accurately represent cinematographer Dan Laustsen’s visuals. While the otherworldly, almost-undersea green remains the base color for most shots, there’s equal attention paid to fiery, warm reds and yellows and chilly blues. Black and white levels run the spectrum from harsh, angular extremes in darkness or sharp facial highlights or on a gentle gradient in mysterious shadows.
The full-channel audio track places dialogue at a premium, retaining an immersive quality as dialogue balances across available speaker channels. The track shines during sequences set in Elisa’s research facility, with ambient mechanical groans, the ripples of the Creature’s pool, and the strings, piano, and bowed vibraphone of Alexandre Desplat’s whimsically romantic score.
Special Features
All Special Features are included on the Blu-ray Disc.
- Fable on Film: In a new conversation recorded in 2024 exclusively for this release, writer-director Del Toro joins David Lowery (The Green Knight, A Ghost Story) to discuss Del Toro’s origins for The Shape of Water (a failed steamy pitch for a Creature From the Black Lagoon reboot at Universal), how Del Toro spun a budgetary need to shoot in color into loving inspiration by filmmakers like Douglas Sirk and Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger, a mutual love for Creature designer Millicent Patrick, teases of a black-and-white version of the film, how the film provides a “corrective” to other Beauty and the Beast stories, and much more.
- Pamphlet featuring an essay by film critic Carlos Aguilar discussing the nature of Del Toro’s recurring “imperfect outsiders” as protagonists, the meticulous directorial control that shapes the worlds around them, and The Shape of Water’s inherited position as a story of rebellion against crippling societal norms both in the midst of the Cold War and the Civil Rights movement as well as in the wake of Donald Trump’s first year in the American Presidency.
The remaining special features are ported over from Searchlight Pictures’ previous release of The Shape of Water on UHD and Blu-ray, listed below:
- A Fairy Tale for Troubled Times: A half-hour 4-part documentary featuring interviews with The Shape of Water’s cast and crew, covering the lifespan of the film from conception to release–including a fascinating featurette on the design of Doug Jones’ Creature from real-world inspirations to the practicality of the costume’s design on set.
- Anatomy of a Scene (Prologue & The Dance): Del Toro guides viewers through two key sequences in the film, including storyboards, behind-the-scenes featurettes (including the dry-for-wet process), Del Toro’s philosophies on executing the difference between fantasy and reality.
- Shaping the Waves – A Conversation with James Jean: Los Angeles artist Jean discusses the aspects of The Shape of Water that inspired him regarding the creation of the film’s marketing materials and in-film charcoal drawings.
- Masterclass – The Shape of Water: Del Toro and additional crew members have an engaging, meticulous discussion about the technical wizardry behind The Shape of Water’s behind-the-scenes departments.
- Trailers for The Shape of Water’s theatrical release.
The Shape of Water is now available on 4K UHD and Blu-ray courtesy of The Criterion Collection.
