Review of The Shape of Water (2017) by Tayler C — 29 Mar 2018

In the era of the paranoid 1960's, Elisia (Sally Hawkins), a mute cleaner working at a government laboratory, befriends a strange fish-monster (Doug Jones) held captive there. When the monster's life is threatened by a hostile agent (Michael Shannon), Elisia, along with her neighbour Giles (Richard Jenkins) and a sympathetic Russian scientist (Michael Stuhlbarg) bring the creature to her home, where she starts to develop stronger feelings for the lonely beast....

Taking inspiration from Universal's Creature from the Black Lagoon along with themes from some of his other films such as Pan's Labyrinth and Crimson Peak, Guillermo Del Toro's latest film is a haunting, yet visually stunning Beauty and the Beast tale that brings the career of one of the best fantasy directors out there back to his roots in the dark fantasy genre in the vein of Cronos and The Devil's Backbone.

Much like how Devil's Backbone and Pan's Labyrinth used the setting of the Spanish Civil War and Francoist Spain as a way integrating fantasy with reality, The Shape of Water uses the Cold War setting to it's full advantage in it's themes within the main narrative of Elisia and the Monster facing antagonists who are motivated by fear of anything that isn't the perfect image of a "proper" American with the characters of Giles and an African-American cleaner named Zelda (Octavia Spencer) having to undergo their own subplots of being rejected by society with the former being homosexual and the latter not being white.

Although some people may find the fact that Del Toro regular, Doug Jones is playing another intelligent fish-monster after previously playing a similar creature Abe Sapain in the Hellboy films slightly amusing, both he and Sally Hawkins have a heartwarming romantic arc as shown in several sequences where they bond over sign language, even if it's a bit less interesting than the ones featured in those films.

Overall, The Shape of Water is another great fantasy epic from Guillermo Del Toro that should satisfy both his fans and for anyone looking for a late Valentine's Day film that offers something that better, down where it's wetter, under the sea.