A Good Film.

Rating: 8/10 (12 September 2018)

Guillermo Del Toro's The Shape of Water (2017) is a masterfully crafted piece of modern cinema. It's a good film.
The performances were great. Sally Hawkins and Richard Jenkins both delivered Oscar-worthy acting. Michael Shannon was understated, I think. Everyone else was good. Oh, side note: I thank god for Octavia Spencer.
The writing was... uneven. It exhibited some themes that were fascinating but not extremely well executed. Sometimes the writing was overly subtle and sometimes it was blatantly obvious. It was a good story which mostly made up for it.
The direction was incredible. With lighting, camera angles, performances, just about every piece of mise-en-scene, we're immersed in this world like a period piece. The way the scenes were executed was always perfect.
The rest of the filmmaking aspects were fine. I especially liked the production design (a pivotal part of the world that was created), the cinematography (every frame felt like a painting, quite striking), and the score (undoubtedly the 3rd best score of the year).
The Shape of Water (2017) isn't perfect. However, it is a good film with decent direction and great performances.