Wow, what a mess!

Rating: 4/10 (9 January 2018)

Take E.T., mash it up with the aesthetic sentiments of Amelie, throw in a dash of The Artist, top it all off with some amazingly open-minded attitudes toward bestiality and you have The shape of Water.
Elisa Esposito is a cleaner at a government facility where top secret projects are kept. Her life is pretty hum-drum until one day she meets a creature from the deep at work and gives him an egg. She instantly falls in love with the beastie and talks her bestie Giles, an aging artist with relationship problems of his own, into helping her mount a rescue. Along the way she receives initially reluctant assistance from her workmate, Zelda, as well as the help of a kind-hearted Soviet spy named Dimitri.
Visually, the movie is quite nice, the soundtrack was also very well chosen, but as a story the film seemed not to be able to make up its mind exactly what it wanted to be. The romance was rushed and never really felt believable, the best friend neighbor was only likeable sometimes, it seemed to want to make some sort of a social statement about male culture in the 50s, but this was only given, at best a superficial treatment; it kept toying with the idea of becoming a musical right up until it sort of did in a number that seemed as out-of-place, awkward and forced as the romance between Esposito and the creature from the deep.
All in all I'd say that this would be one of those films to watch with friends some night for a laugh, but don't expect much more than unintended comedy, as it's otherwise an utter mess.