A Well-Intentioned But Trite Fantasy

Rating: 6/10 (1 September 2019)

I'll admit to the fact that I went into "The Shape of Water" with a skeptical eye - to me it seemed like the kind of uninspired love story that easily wins over the Academy but doesn't actually have enough dramatic depth to be a good movie. After watching the film I'm glad it wasn't as bad as I excepted - but I'm disappointed that it wasn't particularly good either.
The movie follows the story of a mute janitor (Sally Hawkins) who works in an uptight government facility that houses a mysterious creature (Doug Jones). Both characters are outsiders who are treated with contempt by society. They fall in love but are soon persecuted by a ruthless Army colonel (Michael Shannon) who wants to kill the creature. It doesn't take long to realize that this story is something you've seen a thousand times in other (and better) movies: E.T., Edward Scissorhands, Beauty and the Beast, etc. A social outsider either becomes friends or falls in love with a monster who, in reality, is less of a monster than the society that hunts them. This type of story has been told so many times that nearly every plot point in "The Shape of Water" is easily predictable, making for an unsuspenseful and even uninteresting viewing experience.
Del Toro attempts to bring a fresh take on this familiar story by evoking B-movie nostalgia and making subtle references to the racism and sexism that's so often tolerated in our world. In fact "The Shape of Water" could be seen as an allegory for discrimination and prejudice - both as it happened in the 1960s and in the modern times. But Del Toro doesn't dive deeply enough into these themes, which are only infrequently hinted at throughout the film. I actually would've preferred for Del Toro to simply make a movie that explicitly dealt with discrimination and bigotry instead of dancing around those ideas in a metaphor.
Although the performances are stellar, every single major character is a one-dimensional archetype: the innocent social outcast, the monster with a heart of gold, the evil authority figure, the sarcastic best friend - all of these characters have been done plenty of times before and exist only as fantasy tropes, not as three dimensional people. The main cast is likeable, in particular Sally Hawkins, yet that doesn't make their stories original or engaging - which they aren't.
Del Toro is an imaginative filmmaker to be sure - the visuals of "The Shape of Water" are certainly bold and they do much to make up for a hollow script. Overall the movie is well paced - neither too slow or too fast and the score by the always inventive Alexander Desplat is whimsical and romantic. While "The Shape of Water" is aesthetically pleasing it's emotionally hollow and unoriginal. It has some good ideas that could've worked in a better script, and the acting is impressive, but it just didn't capture my attention as a viewer. 6/10.