The Female Gaze:‘The Shape of Water’ Review Round-Up
This weekend, festival darling The Shape of Water from Guillermo del Toro hits theaters. Will audiences turn out for an adult fairy tale between a mute woman and a fish-man? Only time will tell. If you need help deciding if this movie is worth your hard-earned money, below are nearly two dozen reviews from female and non-binary critics.
What’s the consensus? The Shape of Water received nearly universal praise for the cinematography and atmospheric mood. However, the plot itself divided critics. Some felt it was a lovely adult fairy tale interlaced with themes about “Othering” people while others thought the film was uneven and delivers its message with a heavy hand.
Check out the reviews below and find you next favorite critic today!
Title: The Shape of Water Is a Poetic Love Letter to a Monster
Author: Stephanie Zachary
Outlet: TIME
Link: http://time.com/4923582/the-shape-of-water-guillermo-del-toro-review/
Excerpt: With The Shape of Water, Del Toro has conceived an adult fairytale with overt erotic elements. He doesn’t shy away from imagining Elisa’s desire, as well as her love of beauty and her disappointment in all that the real world has to offer her. Del Toro’s version of 1962 Baltimore is hardly a total fantasy. The Cold War and the violent pushback against the Civil Rights Movement in the South [are ever-present].
Title: The Shape of Water is a beautiful adult fairy tale about a fish-man
Author: Alissa Wilkinson
Outlet: Vox
Link: https://www.vox.com/culture/2017/9/12/16288080/shape-of-water-del-toro-review-tiff
Excerpt: The Shape of Water is a fairy tale for adults (and has the R rating to prove it), and there’s a good reason it’s for adults. Young children aren’t born with prejudice; they have to learn it, and they learn from watching their elders treating those who are different like they are less-than. What The Shape of Water has to teach, however subtly, is much needed in a prejudiced world.
Title: The Shape of Water Review
Author: Jamie Broadax
Outlet: Black Girl Nerds
Link: https://blackgirlnerds.com/bgn-tiff-2017-review-shape-water/
Excerpt: These star-crossed lovers tell a fantastical and metaphorical tale about those of us who feel othered and marginalized […] another layer that del Toro taps into this liaison. Eliza and Zelda (Octavia Spencer) are not only co-workers but close friends. Zelda a Black woman, living in 1960s America and seeing images of Black people tear gassed, sprayed and hunted by dogs on national TV; understands even more what it’s like to be treated less than human.
Title: The most romantic movie of 2017 is about a woman who loves a merman
Author: Angie Han
Outlet: Mashable
Link: http://mashable.com/2017/09/12/the-shape-of-water-movie-review/#Iy7QE_zUSqqI
Excerpt: The Shape of Water is achingly tender and humane, and entirely earnest about everything it’s trying to do. (It’s also not very subtle, but at least it earns its metaphors.) It’s what makes the romance of The Shape of Water feel so intense — the elation of true love is untouched by cynicism or snark. What keeps it from getting cloying are its sense of humor (Octavia Spencer gets in some particularly good lines) and its smarts.
Title: The Shape of Water review
Author: Danielle Solzman
Outlet: Cultured Vultures
Link: https://culturedvultures.com/shape-water-2017-review/
Excerpt: The love story between Elisa and the creature is one of the most beautiful love stories depicted on screen and it comes on the heels of the 20th anniversary of Jack and Rose’s epic romance in James Cameron’s Titanic. Neither of two characters talk so all of their performances come through best through their body gestures.
Title: The Shape of Water: A Monstrous Fairy Tale For the Ages
Author: Molly Freeman
Outlet: ScreenRant
Link: https://screenrant.com/shape-water-movie-reviews/
Excerpt: Altogether, del Toro, along with his cast and crew, bring to life a wholly new kind of fairy tale and monster movie, which upends conventions of both genres in order to create a film that’s entirely fresh. While there are certain tropes and elements introduced that don’t seem to pay off in the end, they do work to help flesh out the characters and the world in which they live.
Title: The Shape Of Water: A Quirky Mix of Whimsy and Horror
Author: Staci Layne Wilson
Outlet: Dread Central
Link: https://www.dreadcentral.com/reviews/260500/shape-water-review-quirky-mix-whimsy-horror-not-disappoint/
Excerpt: Del Toro cowrote the screenplay with Vanessa Taylor, whose credits in the television world are numerous — but she’s probably best-known for her work on Game of Thrones — which adds an interesting and feminine perspective […] The Shape of Water is a dreamlike, pulpy adult fairytale that dances on the surface of reality while remaining true to the auteur’s vision.
Title: The Shape of Water review
Author: Jo-Ann Titmarsh
Outlet: Hey U Guys
Link: https://www.heyuguys.com/the-shape-of-water-review/
Excerpt: Sally Hawkins has built her career playing diminutive heroines who are mousy on the outside but contain a leonine heart and this is the acme of the type. Del Toro has amassed an incredibly strong cast to play alongside her and the performances from all do not disappoint. This is a charming, beautifully filmed movie that appeals on many levels and is a song to cinema and to love.
Title: The Shape of Water Is Sweet and Scary Movie Magic
Author: Jessica Kiang
Outlet: The Playlist
Link: https://theplaylist.net/shape-of-water-review-20170831/
Excerpt: There is unmistakable, idiosyncratic care poured into every frame of The Shape of Water, saturated with del Toro’s offbeat compassion and looping, pattern-recognition intelligence […] And despite the period, the fantasy elements, and the escapist joy of its swoony love story, The Shape of Water is topical and political in ways too marked to be mistaken.
Title: The Shape of Water review
Author: Sarah Marrs
Outlet: Lainey Gossip
Link: http://www.laineygossip.com/tiff-review-the-shape-of-water-starring-sally-hawkins/47878
Excerpt: If you ask me to describe Guillermo Del Toro’s The Shape of Water, the short answer is: Amelie f*cks a fish monster. The long answer, though, is that The Shape of Water is a beautiful, tender, sweet, sincere, sorta funny, definitely weird, deeply romantic film about love and communication and loneliness and loss and finding and being found.
Title: The Shape of Water is the year’s most sentimental fish romance
Author: Tasha Robinson
Outlet: The Verge
Link: https://www.theverge.com/2017/9/13/16301586/the-shape-of-water-review-guillermo-del-toro-movie-musical-sally-hawkins
Excerpt: For audiences who like erotic fairy-tales, fantasy, musicals, and Guillermo del Toro in general, it’s unbeatable […] Del Toro has always been a strong visual stylist who puts intense colors and elaborate settings and costumes on the screen, and here, once again, he gives his story a lush setting and intense tone that both wobble between the breathtakingly beautiful and the grotesque.
Title: The Shape of Water review
Author: Sarah Kurchak
Outlet: Consequence of Sound
Link: https://consequenceofsound.net/2017/09/tiff-film-review-the-shape-of-water/
Excerpt: Filmed in aquatic hues and bathed in nostalgic mid-century style, The Shape of Water is both a love story and a love letter to monster movies, musicals, and classic cinema. Del Toro’s affection for the genres — and for the magic of film in general — is clear in so many charming and not-so-charming touches, from the little softshoe that Eliza and Giles execute while sitting on the couch together to the artful way a smear of blood drags across the floor.
Title: The Shape of Water review
Author: Chelsea Phillips-Carr
Outlet: Pop Matters
Link: https://www.popmatters.com/tiff-2017-the-shape-of-water-guillermo-del-toro-2495378263.html
Excerpt: Giving space to minority characters who are shallowly conceived and handled, flattening their experiences into a singular shared oppression, and aligning them with a monstrous fish, the social element of The Shape of Water comes off as uninformed political correctness, which is more detrimental to its cause than it is progressive. Set against the film’s heroes is Michael Shannon’s Colonel Strickland, a Christian, suburban, chauvinist, a cartoonish villain who undermines the idea of real oppression of any kind in his uninspired caricature of “evil white guy”.
Title: Guillermo del Toro Redefines the Love Story in The Shape of Water
Author: Susan Kemp
Outlet: Pop Matters
Link: https://www.popmatters.com/guillermo-del-toro-redefines-the-love-story-in-underwater-fantasy-thriller-the-shape-of-water-2508868572.html
Excerpt: To del Toro’s credit, The Shape of Water aspires to a little more than “daring to dream” (La La Land) or “finding the beauty within” (Beauty and the Beast). By placing the film during the tumultuous ’60s, del Toro’s able to tackle larger themes: racism (Eliza’s African-American friend Zelda just has to stand there silently as Col. Strickland explains the beast is a monstrosity because he’s not made in God’s image — and maybe she isn’t really, either); homosexuality (Eliza enlists the help of Giles after he’s rejected and ousted by both job and friends); and gender (Eliza can strategize to free her lover without falling under suspicion because who would suspect a woman capable of espionage?).
Title: The Shape of Water review
Author: Allyson Johnson
Outlet: The Young Folks
Link: https://www.theyoungfolks.com/film/109522/tiff-movie-review-the-shape-of-water/
Excerpt: Del Toro also, fabulously, doesn’t know how to do anything in half-measures. For good and for bad, he’s fully committed to the tonally sporadic picture he’s created. With any lesser director The Shape of Water might’ve been simply ridiculous or worse, unwatchable. With del Toro at the helm however, we’ve got his most accomplished piece of filmmaking since his breakout Pans Labyrinth.
Title: The Shape of Water review
Author: Emma Simmonds
Outlet: Film List UK
Link: https://film.list.co.uk/article/96349-the-shape-of-water/
Excerpt: Best of all, the film’s disparate elements gel superbly. Alexandre Desplat’s simple accordion score imparts a Parisian vibe, while the frank approach to female sexuality is both apt and refreshing. Paul D Austerberry’s design is impeccable and DP Dan Laustsen wraps the whole production in a toasty glow. This tale of underwater love will leave you awash with wonder as it recaptures the magic of cinema.
Title: The Shape of Water Is Like Pan’s Labyrinth With More Steamy Woman–on–Fish-Monster Sex
Author: Dana Stevens
Outlet: Slate
Link: https://slate.com/arts/2017/11/guillermo-del-toros-the-shape-of-water-reviewed.html
Excerpt: There are moments, especially in the middle section, when the whimsy feels forced and the political allegory too blatant (in between scenes of Shannon torturing the river creature with a cattle prod, news footage of cops beating civil-rights protesters play out on nearby TV screens). But the scenes between the lovelorn Elisa and her piscine paramour sometimes attain the magical heights of what’s still del Toro’s masterpiece, Pan’s Labyrinth.
Title: Del Toro Delivers An Enchanting, Exquisite Fairy Tale With The Shape of Water
Author: Kristy Puchko
Outlet:Riot Material
Link: http://www.riotmaterial.com/guillermo-del-toro-delivers-enchanting-exquisite-fairy-tale-shape-water/
Excerpt: The Shape of Water is absolutely, devastatingly beautiful. Painted in jewel tones and accented by shadows, its world is vibrant yet rimmed with threat. Emerald lawns and teal Cadillacs, aqua uniforms and the cerulean stripes Amphibian Man’s scales, all play against the garnet-colored sprays of blood. For don’t forget, this is del Toro. Neither sex nor violence shall be softened in his R-rated fairy tale.
Title: The Shape of Water Review: Quirky, Fantastical Fairy Tale
Author: Mara Reinstein
Outlet: US Weekly
Link: https://www.usmagazine.com/entertainment/news/the-shape-of-water-review-fairy-tale-is-flush-with-beauty/
Excerpt: When The Shape of Water premiered at the erudite film festivals earlier this fall, critics and audiences were rapturous in their applause for the fantastical fairy tale. Awards nominations are coming soon. In the chillier light of day, I must admit the film nearly drowns in its own quirkiness. Del Toro gets awfully cute with some out-of-nowhere tap dancing
Title: The Shape of Water could have been so much better
Author: Sara Stewart
Outlet: NY Post
Link: https://nypost.com/2017/11/30/shape-of-water-could-have-been-so-much-better/
Excerpt: The Shape of Water is also in love with sumptuous color, from the greens and blues of the elegantly dilapidated lab to the crimson velvet of the grand old movie theater Elisa lives above. There’s also plenty of red in the blood spilled here — del Toro can’t resist a torture scene, and his reliance on gore, dread and the worst human impulses deflates the delight you might take in Elisa’s Amelie-like love story.
Title: The Shape of Water review
Author: Sheila O’Malley
Outlet: Roger Ebert
Link: https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/the-shape-of-water-2017
Excerpt: As [the heroes] team up to try to save the Monster, the film jerks away from the single-minded energy of the dreamlike courtship sequence. The second half of the film — choppily episodic, drawn-out — is noticeably weaker than the first half. The film feels much longer than it is. There are elements that work beautifully and elements that don’t work at all.
Title: The Shape of Water review
Author: Joanna Langfield
Outlet: The Movie Minute
Link: https://themovieminute.com/the-shape-of-water/
Excerpt: Del Toro reminds us, in almost every scene, this movie is a romance, adding new definitions to that word as we go along. There’s something romantic about living above an old, echoing movie house, just as there is befriending the artist who’s just not born for these times. But as magical as it is, it’s the theme of the voiceless princess finding true love even as a monster tries to destroy it that keeps us on the semi-solid ground.
Title: The Shape of Water — A Poetic Fairy Tale For Adults
Author: Courtney Howard
Outlet: Sassy Mama
Link: http://sassymamainla.com/2017/12/review-shape-water-blissful-poetic-fairy-tale-adults/.html
Excerpt: Setting the story against the backdrop of the Cold War era bolsters thematic resonance. It’s a changing world (socio-politically, cinematically and what not) and what’s been heralded as progress may not exactly be that, as Del Toro’s film posits. It’s a time marked by intolerance, power, greed, anger — but also determination and hope. The outsiders are the heroes.
Title: The Shape of Water refreshes Little Mermaid fairy tale with otherworldly romance
Author: Annlee Ellingson
Outlet: Biz Journals
Link: https://www.bizjournals.com/losangeles/news/2017/11/30/shape-of-water-refreshes-little-mermaid-review.html
Excerpt: Anchored by a soul-stirring performance by Sally Hawkins, The Shape of Water is a rapturous, romantic allegory about otherhood set during the Cold War.
Title: The Shape of Water is a Triumphant Masterpiece
Author: Heather Wixson
Outlet: Daily Dead
Link: https://dailydead.com/review-guillermo-del-toros-the-shape-of-water-is-a-triumphant-masterpiece-and-his-greatest-achievement-as-a-filmmaker/
Excerpt: While The Shape of Water is very much a ravishing love story that supersedes all expectations and conventions, the thing that struck me the most about del Toro’s script (which he co-wrote with Vanessa Taylor) was how much the narrative was really about acceptance and the universality of love — not just those romantic feelings, either, but affection shared between humans in general, and our need for connectedness in a world that can be sometimes cruel and dismissive.
Title: The Shape of Water: The Problem with Inter-Species Romance
Author: Candice Frederick
Outlet: GameSpot
Link: https://www.gamespot.com/articles/the-shape-of-water-review-the-problem-with-inter-s/1100-6455107/
Excerpt: It’s one thing to ask audiences to suspend belief for this fairy tale, and it’s a whole other thing to ask them to consider for one moment that an otherwise sane woman would be so desperate as to fall for a creature who can’t even survive on dry land — not when there are actual men in this town […] But if you can get past those strange romance elements, The Shape of Water does succeed at its gorgeous presentation of a Cold War-era American city, rife with seedy characters threatening to abduct the creature for their own gain.
