By: Andrew Ha
At the 90th Academy Awards, or simply the Oscars, the typical fanfares were underway as many celebrities graced the red carpet and prepared themselves for an evening filled with cinema’s best films of the year. From Call Me By Your Name’s heartrending reminder of love and loss to Lady Bird’s all too familiar coming-of-age, there were many amazing movies this year. Yet of all the great contestants for Best Picture, none surpasses , a film about a mother angered by the police’s inaction to find her daughter’s rapist and killer. Unfortunately, the movie was snubbed of its well-deserved Oscar, for the Academy granted the award to The Shape of Water, a film about a mute woman who falls in love with an amphibious man.
As beautiful as director Guillermo del Toro’s movie is with its acting, cinematography, soundtrack, and apt use of color and design, The Shape of Water lacks a creative storyline that fully captivates the viewer. Lest I give spoilers, I would simply like to disclose that the movie merely follows a basic romantic plot line, providing little effort to deviate from it. The film’s plot progression becomes sluggish between the two major plot points: The Shape of Water’s inability to maintain tension within its rising action makes the film feel, at times, a bit slow and boring. Even when momentum does redevelop, the plot becomes predictable and somewhat cheesy. Accordingly, The Shape of Water ends on a lighthearted note to leave the viewer at ease knowing that love is beyond looks and that all will be well. It feels good when a movie concludes with such certainty yet to have a fairytale ending limits a film’s ability to linger on in our minds. The Shape of Water provides but a platitude and lacks any stimulus for discourse. Truly great movies are the ones which leave the audience introspecting and pondering about ourselves and the nature of our world; these movies spur discussion and oftentimes generate confusion and disconcertion.
As unsavory as that may sound, there is honesty and beauty in turmoil: it is the depiction of the never-ending human struggle that makes movies so poignant. And what better emotion than “anger” to surmise this. What makes Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri so impactful is the vehemence the protagonist, Mildred (Frances McDormand) expresses. She wholly embodies the outrage and grief that comes with untimely bereavement. McDormand’s incredible performance makes the viewer acknowledge that Mildred’s actions, as erratic as they may be, are not far off from what viewers feel when they themselves are angry. By the end, viewers must ask themselves: even when expressing anger seems totally justifiable, is it truly worth it?
At no point does the film shy away from discomforting topics; whether it’s deviating societal norms or creating notably dark humor, director and writer Martin McDonagh provides a discomforting yet enjoyable experience that captivates the viewer from beginning to end. Even supporting roles like Dixon (Sam Rockwell) and Willoughby (Woody Harrelson) make the narrative more complex: their own dynamic stories, in conjunction with Mildred’s, all weave together perfectly. The film is always engaging and never trite, because it defies expectation: the audience’s hypotheses of what will happen next is often wrong. Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri is, in all regards, the dramatic, hilarious, and thoughtful movie that should have won Best Picture at the Academy Awards.