Review: The Shape of Water

“If Aquaman was filmed as a bizarre fairy tale love story… this could be it.”

The Shape of Water never claims to be anything other than a kooky other worldly fantasy. We are in Guillermo del Toro land here. If you’ve seen Pan's Labyrinth then you know what you’re in for.

Sally Hawkins is Elisa, a mute girl who is quite an odd girl who was found as a baby abandoned by the side of a river. She has scars on her neck which appear to be left over from the cause of her muteness. She works as a janitor in a strange government laboratory where an odd human like fish creature has been brought for study.

The film is a love story between a woman and a fish man. On description alone, this film sounds ridiculous. But this is del Toro, and he knows how to weave a fairy tale, the kind of film maker Tim Burton looked like he would become before he started making weird remakes of previously good films and TV shows with an over make-upped Johnny Depp.

The visuals of the film are practical, fairly simple and old school and therefore very efficient. The creature is modelled on The Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954). The suit is very effective (I’m assuming there is some CGI augmentation) and it is able to give a good enough performance to convey the love story. Did I mention that the Amphibian Man is also mute, so there is no dialogue between the two characters. Despite this, the story works very well.

Elisa has two friends. Her work college Zelda, played by the fantastic Octavia Spencer (from The Help and Hidden Figures). Thankfully Spencer is becoming a regular on the big screen. We also have Richard Jenkins as Giles, Elisa’s closet gay neighbour. Both characters help with adding dialogue, but they also play big roles in supporting Elisa through the story and we are given just enough back story and time with each character to make the audience care about them. Added to our group of misfit heroes is Michael Stuhlbarg as Dr. Hoffstetler, adding a bit of cold war mystery to the whole thing, and an interesting little side story.

But of course, as he does so often, we have Michael Shannon stealing the show as the villain. Bringing his usual lispy yet threatening vocal delivery, Shannon is perfectly cast as the tormentor or this poor creature and he even manages to bring more menace to the role than he did as General Zod in Man of Steel.

The film in some ways acts as a warped version of Beauty and the Beast, (including a short musical number thrown in randomly as well). The story is fairly straight forward and efficient, and the performances are all good. There could be a little more tension in the film especially in the third act, as Shannon takes too long to get going on chasing after our heroes. But the ending is satisfying and the film is a good change of pace from the usual day at the cinema. Be warned, it is violent in parts, and there is some sexy time… including some fish action… (but tastefully done).