Oscar Nominee Shape of Water Accused of Plagiarising A Play

Shape of Water has become an awards darling, winning over quite a lot of trophies, including the Best Film and the Best Director. It is quite amusing to see how a love story about a human and a fish has endeared people, but credit goes to the director Guillermo del Toro's strong direction and the beautiful framing and story-telling, not to forget a wonderful performance by lead actress Sally Hawkins.

The movie is a frontrunner to win all major award in the upcoming Academy Awards that will happen next month. However, here comes an accusation that might dent its chances to make an indelible impression.

David Zindel, the son of playwright Paul Zindel, has accused the makers of Shape of Water of stealing the idea from the play that his father wrote in 1969. As per a lawsuit filed by Zindel, the movie is alleged to have lifted off the theme from the play  Let Me Hear You Whisper. From a report in Variety, the play deals with an introverted female janitor who forms a bond with a dolphin in a military laboratory, that is about to be dissected for experimentation. Unable to see her friend go, she hatches a plan to let the dolphin escape into the nearby river. In Shape of Water, the plot is nearly the same except for the fact that a strange fish-man replaces the dolphin, and there is a love story between the janitor and the fish-man.

The play features an introverted female janitor who forms a bond with a dolphin while working in a military laboratory during the height of the Cold War. According to the suit, the janitor learns that the dolphin is to be dissected, and so hatches a plot to kidnap it in a laundry cart and release it into a river. In “The Shape of Water,” a mute janitor in a military lab forms a bond with an Amazonian river monster, and hatches a plot to kidnap it to spare it from death.

The lawsuit that was filed against the movie mentions, “Despite the glaring similarities between the Play and the obviously derivative Picture, Defendants never bothered to seek or obtain a customary license from Plaintiff of motion picture and ancillary rights to the Play, nor did Defendants credit Zindel on the Picture.”

Later in  a separate press statement, the complainant David Zindel said, "My dad was a chemistry teacher before he became a Pulitzer Prize-winning author. He was always so generous with his time to help and inspire students, teachers, librarians, and other writers; so it came as a total shock to us that his original work would be so blatantly and extensively taken. We are very grateful for the spontaneous outpouring on social media that first brought this injustice to our attention. This troubling matter was raised with Fox five weeks ago but was met with inertia. The glaring similarities between the film and our father’s play are too extensive for us to ignore and so we had to act.”

However, the producers Fox Searchlight denied these allegations and said, “These claims from Mr. Zindel’s estate are baseless, wholly without merit, and we will be filing a motion to dismiss. Furthermore, the estate’s complaint seems timed to coincide with the Academy Award voting cycle in order to pressure our studio to quickly settle. Instead, we will vigorously defend ourselves and, by extension, this groundbreaking and original film.”

We have to see how this case turns out at the court, and how there allegations will affect Shape of Water's chances at the Oscars 2018.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Feb 22, 2018 03:07 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).