A romanticized fairytale of the darker aspects of American society

Rating: 9/10 (27 January 2019)

Having to overcome the more dated sleazy image of Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954), Shape of Water makes its own more artful humanistic debut. Using a glamourized period artistic style of the 1940s and 1950s director Guillermo del Toro of Chronos (1993) and Hellboy (2004), has built upon the retro silent movie cinema of The Artist (2011) with the delightful period elements of the romantic comedy Down with Love (2003). This is a whimsical but also penetratingly stark reflection of the social divides that resonated and still persist in America today such as depicted in Hidden Figures (2016) and The Help (2011) which both also starred Octavia Spencer that is in this movie. Towards the end of the movie, like the delightful romantic comedy, Shape of Water also includes an elegant surrealistic period sequence. The only glaring discord arises with a most difficult to portray verbal thoughts of the mute star of the movie when director del Toro resorts to having Richard Jenkin's character having to literally repeat Sally Hawkins's character's important speech scene. At times much darker than typical expected, this sci fi/monster movie offers up a revealing and perhaps profound statement about prejudice and humanity as also depicted in two other small, independent movie pieces Wavelength (1983), an engaging early sci fi movie about children's attempt to save captured space aliens and Artic Heart (2016) which just happens to be a contemporary synthesized creature version of Shape of Water. Shape of Water is a meaningful, romanticized fantastic fairytale of the darker aspects of American society.