The Shape of Water – Movie Review

The Shape of Water is a 2017 drama/fantasy film directed and written by Guillermo del Toro. The film stars Sally Hawkins, Michael Shannon, Richard Jenkins, Doug Jones, Michael Stuhlbarg, and Octavia Spencer. While taking place in a top secret research facility in the 1960s, a lonely janitor forms a unique relationship with an amphibious creature that is being held in captivity.

What a weird film. I’m not knocking it for its unoriginality, but you can not deny that this film is just really odd. That being said, I’ve been actually looking forward to this film for awhile, and that was even before all of the Oscar buzz. Sadly at the time of its release I was both away and had a hard time fitting it into my busy review schedule. But, I’ve finally gotten to it, so here’s my review for the oddly satisfying film, The Shape of Water.

So what really stood out to me right away was the film’s outstanding performances from across the board. There is no denying that this is an amazingly acted film, and the entire cast proves that it can make even the weirdest of films that much better. There wasn’t a single performance in this film that I wasn’t disappointed in, and The Shape of Water gives us one of the best ensembles of 2017. Out of that ensemble my favorite role was that of Richard Jenkins, and Michael Stuhlbarg. Both of these gentlemen bring so much to the table with so much depth to their characters, and if Jenkins doesn’t at least get a supporting nom, I have no idea what the academy is thinking. Sally Hawkins was very good in this film as she portrayed a variety of emotions without mumbling a single word, and Shannon is terrifying proving yet again, he can take any antagonist role all the way past home base.

With all that being said, I did want to mention that I had a little bit of a hard time with Shannon’s character. Again I thought that his performance was phenomenal, but his character lacked a lot of depth that I felt was either not there, or just not thought of. Although Shannon’s portrayal of his character gave the role a lot more meaning, we never really learn about him to the point where we feel for him. The best villains are the ones that you fear, but the memorable villains are the ones that we feel for as well. Look at Billboards for that matter. Sam Rockwell’s character had depth to him, yet even when you hated him you still had feelings for him. Sure The Shape of Water gives him a family and a wife, but his interactions with them gives us little to work with, and the lack of depth really holds this film back when it comes to a memorable antagonist.

Moving on from my small rant, I did want to mention that this film is f’ing gorgeous. The color pallet alone is to die for, and it all blends so well together with the 60’s style and look. Honest to god, this film has wicked similarities to the video game Bioshock. If you don’t believe me, just look it up. But aside from that, this film is literally one of the prettiest colored films I’ve seen in such a long time. Her was probably one of the last films that I could remember that really stuck to one color throughout the film, and The Shape of Water did a great job following suit. As for the visual effects in this film.. I couldn’t tell the difference between what was real and what was fake, so I’ll just say that they were fantastic. How they did the Amphibian Man, is beyond me.

Another aspect to this film that quietly blew me away was its sound design. Holy crap this film sounds absolutely amazing. Each sound that the creature makes seems to have purpose and meaning, and this movie’s score is also very beautiful. Although I do not think it is worthy of winning an Oscar, I will say that it is beautiful enough for a nomination. This film was so masterly thought out down to the smallest of sounds, that I can say that the sound design team also did a fantastic job with this film.

Although I seemed to have really enjoyed the movie thus far, there were some issues I had with it. The really big issue that I had while walking away is probably the one that a lot of other people had as well.. it’s really weird. Like not even a little weird, this film is very weird. Is that a bad thing? Well, no.. but it does suffer from a minor pacing issue because of it. There’s a couple of scenes in this film more towards the third act of the film that lean towards the odd side of things, and because of that the film kinda screeches to a halt. This film also suffers the Lady Bird issue of just flying (or cutting) past time, which kinda left me confused as to what happened in the moment. Of course these are minor issues that didn’t need to be exactly explained, but it would have been nice not to have these issues in the first place.

With all that being said, this is yet another beautifully made film from 2017. Although it has some very strange aspects to it, those can really be overlooked, minus the small pacing issues come the third act. This is one of the most beautiful color pallets I have seen in modern film since 2013, and its sound design is one in a million. The main selling point for me with this film had to be its fantastic cast, as each performance is great enough for its own nomination this awards season. Even with all that I still didn’t find myself personally liking this film as much as others did, but in the end I decided to give The Shape of Water a “Good” on theVade Review Bar. Weird or wild this film will grab you. For me it was its visuals and performances, but for you.. maybe you’re into bestiality. I guess whatever floats your boat.