The Shape of Water

After Pan's Labyrinth, Guillermo del Toro is back to tell The Little Mermaid tale the other way around!

Sally Hawkins played a mute janitor Elisa Esposito, working in a science facility. We began following her through a quiet daily routine. She lived above a theater. She's lonely. She masturbates every morning before being alarmed by an egg timer to dress up and leave to office. All the more, she's a curious, childlike adventurer who loved music and foot-tapping accordingly!

Came a rare presence into her life which made the storyline instantly intriguing! She started interacting with a subject of experiment, and little did she knew that she would see her exact self in the Amphibian Man! They shared music, language and of course, eggs! All went well prior to Michael Shannon's entrance into the picture as Richard Strickland, the extremely intimidating, fearless, selfish, commanding, ruthless and respectless Colonel! Losing a finger in an accident won't bother this man at all, as he would pluck it out himself! With the right motivation and enormous pressure on his back, nothing stopped him from reclaiming his stolen asset!

Screenwriters Guillermo del Toro and Vanessa Taylor did a marvelous endeavor crafting this art! They knew the right methods to put the scenes on its toes constantly! Let's talk about the iconic escapade sequence! Foreshadowing and pieces of clips providing vital information that would be used at some point, collided at the right time to form this peak point of the story! And it was nail-bitingly tense from start to finish! Other episodes where Elisa was stuck in lab when Strickland arrived to torture her lover with an electrocuting shaft, Elisa's sign language "Fuck You" and Dr. Hoffstetler's (Michael Stuhlbarg) potential murder by having a knife at his back, were the same! How could one forget the ever amazingly cruel, intense and deadlines-driven finale where Strickland hunted the good guys like a hawk, tortured Dr. Hoffstetler and eventually killed our protagonist in a shocking climax! But with the knowledge we had about her wounds at neck and the creature's ability to heal almost anything, we knew he would turn those scars into gills and they would live happily ever after in the shape of water!

Water was a recurring element, so was the theme of finding someone to connect to through similarities. We saw this being implemented with Elisa's passion towards Amphibian Man, Strickland's liking towards Elisa and Giles' (Richard Jenkins) interest towards the pie-maker, although the last one was a little out of the story's way. But, all these subplots and characters merged with the main effortlessly. Speaking of characters, there were balances between good and evil, to successfully transfer thoughts on both idea and counter-idea.

Possibly the biggest issue with this story would be the lack of persuasion for the romance to ensue between Elisa and the Amphibian Man. Yes, we're told she was found near a river as a baby. But, what we needed were more scenes and time allocated to visually show them yoking their relationship. Plus, Elisa wasn't treated bad by mostly anyone around her. She's always taken care of and although she's alone, she wasn't vividly shown insufficient of love or attention. In other words, there should have been stronger reasons and convictions for her to fall in love with someone not her kind. The step changes for this romance to blossom were missing. However, as aforementioned, her childlike curiosity justified the actions she would take. And the writers took enough time to show how she humanized him and got intimate over the process.

For even the most keened eyes, not a flaw could be caught in the technical aspects of this gorgeous silver screen painting! The teal thematic color, settings and atmosphere were uniform with one another! Old school steady and crystal clear cinematography highlighting details was coolant to the eyes! The way Guillermo filmed all the underwater floating portions were mesmerizingly beautiful! Lighting focus during a dream segment where Elisa aspired to talk and convey her feelings, followed by a black and white stage song was elegant! Transitions using sounds were seamless! The same could be said about Sidney Wolinsky's editing!

Humanoid amphibian creature design was magnificent! Be it the scales, glowing blue veins, makeup, prosthetics suit or even Doug Jones' performance, everything was first class! Speaking of performances, Michael Shannon, Sally Hawkins and Michael Stuhlbarg did a great job!