Critics reviews

Despite all the positive representation of marginalized people and the explicit condemnation of men who work for the government, the film takes a gleeful delight in torture and pain.

Del Toro's filmography has always been predicated upon gratuitousness, whether of violence or sentimentality, and The Shape of Water has both in spades, from its hyperbolic gore (Shannon dragging Stuhlbarg around by crooking his index finger through a gaping bullet hole in his cheek) to its vapid flights of fancy (a risible Astaire-Rogers dance fantasy) to its nudge-nudge sprinkles of manufactured Visual Poetry (not to be confused with actually beautiful compositions, of which there are none).

A movie that, upon reflection, seems to me to be among del Toro's worst, even as it is being lined up by critics, festival juries, and its Oscar-mongering distributor as his crowning achievement to date. . . . There is an airless, self-adulatory quality to The Shape of Water that not only spoils the fun but reverses it, so that every ostensibly enchanted gesture becomes an alienation effect.

It looks marvelous—one can easily get caught up in the lavish production design and inventive special effects, and the graceful camera movements carry one through the meticulously designed environments. The storytelling is fantastic and straightforward, like that of a fairy tale. Yet The Shape of Water is also a patronizing film; del Toro and his cowriter, Vanessa Taylor, tell viewers what to think and feel at every turn, then congratulate them for responding appropriately.

Hawkins never overplays it. Hers is one of the most expressive faces on the planet, and it would have been so easy to go over the top with the role of a mute, mousy romantic — to fill the character's silences with angular, expressive grotesquerie. But throughout this whole thing, she remains life-size and real. It speaks both to del Toro's confidence and generosity that, having designed this world so thoroughly, he essentially hands the whole thing over to Hawkins.

It doesn't cohere into the fairy tale promised by the dreamy opening. It makes its points with a jackhammer, wielding symbols in blaring neon. The mood of swooning romanticism is silly or moving, depending on your perspective.

Like the archetypal fairy tale it is, The Shape of Water takes few unexpected twists. There's a fair share of gory violence and a few unsettling bursts of body horror (including a trigger warning–worthy scene with an unfortunate housecat) but little real suspense. Even if you're not transported by every minute of the film's story, though, del Toro creates such a sumptuous visual world that it's impossible to take your eyes off the screen.

This paramour from the deep is portrayed with supreme elegance by the actor and contortionist (and del Toro regular) Doug Jones–the performance is more like dance than anything, a muscular ode to the idea that freedom and grace can be won, but only after we break free from caution and fear. The Shape of Water is a sensual adult fairy tale that leads us deep into a dream. Waking up, and re-entering the everyday world, is the part you have to steel yourself for.

Though its narrative hinges on bestiality, The Shape of Water is studiously devoid of kink. Throughout, Del Toro is skittish about the practical implications of his concept, which the filmmaker utilizes for social platitudes, equating the Amphibian Man's otherness with real-life alienation and prejudice.

The Shape of Water, del Toro's latest, is less an attempt to fuse these two modes than a fully-fledged attempt to make one of his Spanish-language works in Hollywood, borrowing tropes with equal zest from pop culture lore of the mid-20th century, the archives of fantastic literature and surrealist art, fairy-tales, and internet fan-penned slash-fic erotica.

Without a whiff of preachiness, the film presents a vision in which a voiceless gamine, a gay artist, and a middle-aged black woman (Octavia Spencer) take a unified stand for tolerance in repressive 1962. The last act drags as Shannon's schematic pursuit of the creature threatens the story's delicate architecture, but del Toro subverts audience expectations with an old song that speaks volumes: "You'll Never Know.

Apart from delivering an object lesson to the Clooney/Coen idiocy of misreading the same period, this is magical storytelling. Crossing a rethink of Pan's Labyrinth with a progressive remake of something as tacky as Creature of the Black Lagoon is no mean feat, and del Toro pulls it off with grace. What he does with rain is alone worth the price of admission.