Review of The Shape of Water (2017) by Lewis C — 04 Mar 2018

The Shape of Water is a very creative and stunningly visual and sounding film, but with an underwhelming story and slower pace. Sally Hawkins' Elisa is mute and communicates through sign language. She lives a boring life as a janitor for a secret government laboratory, with the only the only people close to her being a woman named Zelda (Octavia Spencer) and neighbour Giles (Richard Jenkins).

The leader of the facility, Colonel Richard Strickland (Michael Shannon) captures a creature in South America and houses it in his facility. Elisa slowly develops a strong bond with this creature, who is actually very intelligent and able to understand human language and emotions.

The film focuses on this relationship, which is a very weird concept between a mute woman and a creature from far away. The plot is also very predictable too once audiences figure out the premise, have seen the trailer, or heard anything about the film.

The pacing can also be a bit slow at times, as not much occurs in the way of meaningful events for long durations of the film. There are many positives to the film however. The story is very creative unlike many modern Hollywood films.

The movie is also visually stunning and the music and sound mixing is well done. 1960's America is captured perfectly and there are some great songs that add to the emotion of certain scenes. There are also standout performances from all of the actors and actresses, who are deservingly being considered for numerous awards.

Overall, The Shape of Water is a creative, well acted, and visually stunning film, but it overshadowed by a simple and predictable premise and long duration of slow pace scenes.