Top-Notch Effects and Wonderful Acting Carry the Shape of Water

Rating: 8/10 (3 February 2018)

Even when I haven't been in love with Del Toro's past work the guy knows how to create wonderful environments and atmosphere. The window dressing in this movie is gorgeous. The sets look real, yet they have enough style to draw your attention. From the apartment to the government facility, there was never a point where something wasn't eye-catching or visually impressive. This is always the highlight of Guillermo's films for me, there's always a great sense of style that brings a unique edge. I haven't even touched on how Amphibian Man (Doug Jones) great as a character looks. He does have some similarities to Abe Sapien but he still has enough different aspects to be a completely new character. This movie is worth seeing just for how creative and lavish the visuals in this movie are.
I also thought the setting of the movie added to making it tenser. The movie takes place during the Cold War and the movie benefits from the tension that they play with. Anyone could be a double agent and I dug how they handled the character of Dmitri. They even had good small touches with posters in the background saying things like Loose Lips Sink Ships. The Shape of Water also has some surprisingly suspenseful scenes and some gory violence. Something like that could have felt tacked on but it gave me something to focus on when other parts of the movie weren't working for me.
The other amazing aspect of this movie was the acting. Everyone across the board brought their A-game. Sally Hawkins was great as Elisa, there was so much subtle work in her performance. She conveys so much through her body language and there were some risky choices with her character that she nailed. Richard Jenkins was also phenomenal as Giles. He gives a very quiet but impacting performance. Michael Shannon is great as the villain, he borders on being cartoonish without falling into chewing the scenery. I also really liked Michael Stuhlbarg as Dr. Hoffstetler. He was one of my favourite parts of Men In Black 3 and he's a really strong character actor when he's given good material. Octavia Spencer was solid, but I wish she had been given more to do than act like Octavia Spencer. Doug Jones was also really good, he has to do a lot under all that makeup, but he still gets the job done.
The only thing that fell flat for me was the romance between Elisa and Amphibian Man. Unfortunately, this is one of the big aspects of the movie, so I couldn't just shove it aside. I liked both of their characters, but the movie was obviously going for a Beauty and the Beast vibe and it was just not working for me. I know that I'm in the minority on this and I still enjoyed the movie outside of it, but it did distract me enough to avoid giving this a higher grade.
I also had a real mix of emotions about the ending. I don't know if I would have chosen to go another way, but they go with a crowd-pleaser instead of something a little more realistic. I agree with other user reviews on here that it seems like it was going for more of a fable/fairytale feeling but it also came off as a little sappy to me. There are movies that need to have a happy ending so maybe Guillermo decided that The Shape of Water was one of those.
The critics have adored this movie and I can see why. This is a film-buff movie, there's more than a few scenes paying homage to classic movies. I think that people will enjoy this regardless even though it does run a little long. I couldn't buy into one of the bigger aspects of the plot but I still highly recommend this movie. What it gets right, it does so with flying colours and it is worth seeing just for that.