The least pleasing aspect of the film is its simplistic plot. It is melodramatic and predictable. The "good" characters are very good and the "bad" characters are sadistic and mean with little gray area and not a lot of complexity. We have the marginalized (handicapped, black and gay characters) being victimized by the white straight man. The film's strength is its aesthetics. It is stunningly beautiful. It is an R rated fairy tale and it is immersive and at times, overwhelming. I wish I had seen it on the big screen.
A battle of colors is what is happening here, greens versus reds. Red is passionate and violent. Green (yellow mixed with blue) is the opposite of red. Green is pastoral, calm, normal and serene. Elisa, our main character, is a mute, not deaf, and an orphan. She literally doesn't have a voice in society. She still has the scars on her neck from a violent incident in her childhood. She works as janitorial staff at a scientific lab. She also lives in an apartment upstairs from a movie theater. Her apartment is dark green, filled with curvy lines with no right angles. It feels like you are underwater as del Toro's camera flows through the apartment. You feel like you are swimming. The only light is either coming through the floor boards from the movie theater or from the black and white television. It is 1962. It is the height of the Cold War, the height of black and white thinking.
The green is overwhelming in this film. Their Jello is green, they eat key lime pie, she drinks from a bright green cup. Her headband, janitorial uniform, desk and the walls of her bathroom are green. Her sadistic boss, Strickland's phone, his desk, his candy and his rotting fingers are green. His Cadillac is teal, "the color of the future." He gets pissed if you say it is green. He washes his hands with green hand soap before he urinates in front of Elisa as she cleans the men's room. He doesn't wash his hands afterward as a matter of principle. Even the chairs in this world are green. And of course, the humanoid fish-like creature with the power of healing, that Elisa falls in love with, is all green. The van which she rescues him with, you got it, is green.
Early in the film Elisa looks into the store window at a red pair of heels. She longs for them. After she first meets the creature, she rides home on the bus with red lights from the streets lighting her up. As her relationship with the creature progresses, she gets more red. She has a red headband, she buys the red heels and wears a red coat. Strickland rapes his wife while she is wearing a red sweater. He covers her mouth because he doesn't want to hear her talk. He then becomes interested in Elisa because she can't talk. He is a sick man. We don't see his wife wearing red afterward.
It is Elisa and the creature's lack of speech that make their relationship strong. Words lie, gestures do not. She sees herself as incomplete and she loves that he doesn't see her that way. In the end, both Elisa and the creature are covered in blood (red) from gun shots. The creature grabs her and pulls her into the water (all green). He cures her and the scars on her neck become gills. Imagine that a happy ending. This film takes your classic monster film and turns it upside-down. The marginalized are the heroes and the guy who seems to have it all, is more of a monster than the actual creature.
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