The Shape of Water, this year’s biggest winner at the recently concluded 90th Academy Awards that won top awards including Best Picture, Best Director, Best in Original Score and Best Production Design is still showing in Philippine cinemas.
An uplifting, inspiring and totally entertaining movie, The Shape of Water hits home as it relates to local Pinoy folklore and romance.
Directed by Guillermo del Toro who has dedicated his life to fairy tales and fantastical creatures, his fascination with the macabre has marked all of his features since his 1993 directorial debut, Cronos. From his earliest days growing up in Guadalajara, Mexico, telling stories about escaping to realms governed by monsters was in his DNA.
The Shape of Water brings its audience into a mysterious government facility where an amphibious creature (played by Doug Jones) is being studied for its unusual abilities. As Agent Strickland (Michael Shannon) demands for it to be killed and autopsied, Dr. Hoffstetler (Michael Stuhlbarg) insists that the creature’s secrets can only be revealed with a lighter touch. But it’s the facility’s quietest employee who realizes the truest connection to the creature. Mute cleaner Elisa (Sally Hawkins) feels a strange affinity with this mysterious visitor from the deep. And as the men in charge prevaricate, she resolves to release the creature from its captors, with the aid of her friend Zelda (Octavia Spencer) and her next door neighbor Giles (Richard Jenkins).
“In the ‘90s I pitched the idea of making an amphibian man romance, but as a sci-fi movie. I co-wrote a novel called Trollhunters and my co-writer,Daniel Krauss, we were having breakfast in Toronto as I was prepping Pacific Rim, and he said, ‘You know, I have this idea about secret government keeping an amphibian creature, and this janitor befriends him,’” Del Toro looks back on the birth of the movie,
Del Toro said that he immediately bought the idea from Krauss.
“I bought it and I guaranteed him co-story. That was four or five years ago. I just thought it was a love story,” the director related.
The American romantic fantasy drama is still available in cinemas at S’Maison, SM Mall of Asia, SM North Edsa, Greenhills Theatermall, Powerplant, Rockwell Santolan, SM Cauayan, SM Seaside, SM Cebu, SM Rosales, Eastwood and Robinson’s Galleria.