Guillermo del Toro’s fantasy drama, ‘The Shape of Water’, emerged as the ultimate win­ner at the 2018 Academy Awards. It had been nominated for 13 Oscars and won four, including best director and best picture. Starring Sally Hawkins, Michael Shannon, Octavia Spenser, and Richard Jenkins, the movie was a visual marvel, one that tugged at your heartstrings. Unfortunately, the same can’t be said of its novel coun­terpart, the pace of which is a little sluggish and thus makes you want to skim through the pages halfway through. You already know the ending anyway.

 

For those of you who haven’t watched the movie yet, the basic premise is this: Set in America of the 1960s, Elisa, a mute janitor working at a government research center in Baltimore, falls in love with an imprisoned amphibi­ous man who is being tortured at the lab. The military responsi­ble for its capture then decide to kill the creature to dissect him for further research and Elisa, with a little help from her friends, plans a rescue operation.

 

The filmmaker Toro collabo­rated with author Daniel Kraus to bring the cinematic experience unto paper and the book was published a little less than two months after the movie’s release. The book was supposed to expand and enrich the story but what it does instead is make you feel like you are reading the first draft of the movie script.

The filmmaker and author both no doubt felt that a movie, at two hours, could only scratch the sur­face of human emotions and strug­gles. The novel thus takes its time to dra

w out the characters and delve deep into their minds. The result is a bit tedious. This is per­haps because you feel you know the characters and what they are thinking, having met them in the movie already.

 

That being said, The Shape of Water isn’t a bad book. Not by any means. It’s just that you have already watched (and loved) the movie, and seen the char­acters through their trails and tribulations that there’s no shaking off the feeling of déjà vu you inev­itably get. That is what takes away from the reading experience and makes the narrative seem long and stretched. You already know where it’s going yet you have to bear through pages of introspection and (oftentimes) pointless drama to get there. If you haven’t watched the movie, we recommend you read the book. If you have, you might be better off finding something else to read