Review of The Shape of Water (2017) by Marissa C — 31 Dec 2017
A fantastic/interspecies romance between Amelie-esque and Merman characters -- gone awfully predictable. I won't start to enumerate them here but they're identifiable as characterization trope appears -- prescience takes over right from the start.
Sally Hawkins was not as captivating to me in this role. Her interpretation appeared flat due to the predictability of her character -- the gamine, mousy, reclusive, shy type with a heart of gold. She overcompensated and appeared over acting as the fantastic story continued to unfold. The change of different plot devices like the a mob movie plot, musical number, gay crush romance to the nitty gritty cute mute trope.
Octavia Spencer as her interpreter and confidante provided a more nuanced performance, but oh how I would have loved to see her in the scientist role, speaking Russian learned as an expat who married an ambassador...break those stereotypes race tropes (I digress), but that would just break the heavy handed theme park...
Superb acting by the villain Michael Shannon.
The points are for the visually stunning cinematography both terrain and subaquatic scenes...
For fun, do a Bechdel test ;-).
This review of The Shape of Water (2017) was written by Marissa C on 31 Dec 2017.
The Shape of Water has generally received very positive reviews.
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