THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SOME SPOILERS.
Unrealistic yet captured with dedicated cinematography and its boosted soundtrack, The Shape of Water is a film which provides certain amount of decency that could have at least been maintained and achieved. However, director Guillermo Del Toro seems to lack the ability of recognising the picture itself does not require as much booster as he thought it would need.
The Shape of Water follows a story of a woman, Eliza who has a few friends and works for a somewhat government kind of laboratory place as a cleaner. Because of something that happened in her early days of her childhood, Eliza was a muted woman who learned how to use sign language and her friend is there at work to be her interpreter. One fine day, while Eliza and her friend were at a special unit, they were introduced to a recent asset found in South America, resulting in their encounter that would change Eliza forever. Living alone and does masturbate in the bath, the story would follow her exchanging conversations with the creature and how the love story unfolds as consequences come about became ahead of time and very unfortunate indeed.
I followed the beginning of The Shape of Water in which I found myself slowly stepping into the Cold War era, and here we have - some good old American values, the American Dream were common. The blues coming from the sea, the mesmerising score that was played, and the way we were introduced to the story, it sets the mood and tone that could easily made me consider that The Shape of Water was going to be my favourite on my recent watchlist, but it did not and here I am going to speak up about how I felt watching the middle and the ending.
I found myself cringing at the fact that Eliza and the creature have sexual intercourse, and how the story goes about in the middle. It looked to me like this has got be some kind of joke in which I have no offends but to question Del Toro’s; why are you making up the stuff that seems unnecessary in the story plot? This further extended to the part where I felt that Sally Hawkins’ performances as Eliza seemed to fall flat here and obviously, this does not play good. This could be seen from the scene in which Eliza found herself singing and suddenly we are introduced a completely different theme that does sounded like a joke. Broadway-like segment seems very redundant to even consider adding into the final cut for Hawkins’ Eliza was already good enough without having the Broadway-ish to prove how much she loved the creature and he would never understand. A great suggestion for this particular scene would have to focus on Hawkins’ trying to voice her singing and all is done naturally; no need for La La Land’s out of the dream box moment. Otherwise, I would have related more to The Shape of Water than I had now while I write this review.
In conclusion, The Shape of Water could have been better. It may have touching characters and somewhat a story to tell, to make changes. However, some things could have been avoided at all cost because the acting assemble were good enough to capture your attention especially when Eliza started to sing (remove the Broadway-ish adventure filter) how she felt for the creature; the singing voice that tugged your heartstrings. While I continued to feel displeased about The Shape of Water, the original music score by Alexandre Desplat, the cinematography and the directing were done beautifully well, made me feel like there is so much to tell from the story and this is disappointing because the chemistry, couple development between Eliza and the creature only lasted a few minutes. I felt the whole bonding thing was very rushed to begin with, not to mentioned this is unlikely, especially to swim in the water in the bathroom without giving thoughts about the neighbours or the theatre goers, or to even let Eliza made love with the creature like it was an object for her sexual fantasies.
Regardless of that, The Shape of Water is still a breathable story out of the water in which it still instilled positivity and some love that made you follow the whole film despite its cringing moments to come to think of them and some horror elements.
Ratings: 5.5/10
The Shape of Water follows a story of a woman, Eliza who has a few friends and works for a somewhat government kind of laboratory place as a cleaner. Because of something that happened in her early days of her childhood, Eliza was a muted woman who learned how to use sign language and her friend is there at work to be her interpreter. One fine day, while Eliza and her friend were at a special unit, they were introduced to a recent asset found in South America, resulting in their encounter that would change Eliza forever. Living alone and does masturbate in the bath, the story would follow her exchanging conversations with the creature and how the love story unfolds as consequences come about became ahead of time and very unfortunate indeed.
I followed the beginning of The Shape of Water in which I found myself slowly stepping into the Cold War era, and here we have - some good old American values, the American Dream were common. The blues coming from the sea, the mesmerising score that was played, and the way we were introduced to the story, it sets the mood and tone that could easily made me consider that The Shape of Water was going to be my favourite on my recent watchlist, but it did not and here I am going to speak up about how I felt watching the middle and the ending.
I found myself cringing at the fact that Eliza and the creature have sexual intercourse, and how the story goes about in the middle. It looked to me like this has got be some kind of joke in which I have no offends but to question Del Toro’s; why are you making up the stuff that seems unnecessary in the story plot? This further extended to the part where I felt that Sally Hawkins’ performances as Eliza seemed to fall flat here and obviously, this does not play good. This could be seen from the scene in which Eliza found herself singing and suddenly we are introduced a completely different theme that does sounded like a joke. Broadway-like segment seems very redundant to even consider adding into the final cut for Hawkins’ Eliza was already good enough without having the Broadway-ish to prove how much she loved the creature and he would never understand. A great suggestion for this particular scene would have to focus on Hawkins’ trying to voice her singing and all is done naturally; no need for La La Land’s out of the dream box moment. Otherwise, I would have related more to The Shape of Water than I had now while I write this review.
In conclusion, The Shape of Water could have been better. It may have touching characters and somewhat a story to tell, to make changes. However, some things could have been avoided at all cost because the acting assemble were good enough to capture your attention especially when Eliza started to sing (remove the Broadway-ish adventure filter) how she felt for the creature; the singing voice that tugged your heartstrings. While I continued to feel displeased about The Shape of Water, the original music score by Alexandre Desplat, the cinematography and the directing were done beautifully well, made me feel like there is so much to tell from the story and this is disappointing because the chemistry, couple development between Eliza and the creature only lasted a few minutes. I felt the whole bonding thing was very rushed to begin with, not to mentioned this is unlikely, especially to swim in the water in the bathroom without giving thoughts about the neighbours or the theatre goers, or to even let Eliza made love with the creature like it was an object for her sexual fantasies.
Regardless of that, The Shape of Water is still a breathable story out of the water in which it still instilled positivity and some love that made you follow the whole film despite its cringing moments to come to think of them and some horror elements.
Ratings: 5.5/10
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