The Shapelessness of Water.

I have often raved about the director of this film, Guillermo del Toro, who is one of my favorite film directors. However, when it comes to The Shape of Water, I have to say that I was incredibly disappointed with his work. For me, the premise of a sea creature and a human falling in love is classic del Toro and I didn't have a problem with that, I just thought his execution of the story was poorly done. So it's the 1960's in the United States at the height of the Cold War between the U.S.S.R. and U.S., and in the backdrop of that is an intimate story about a mute cleaning woman in Baltimore that works at a top secret U.S. facility. She falls in love with a captive, underwater sea creature, and together they try to survive and navigate Russian agents, and an American CIA operative with an insatiable blood lust. The main character Elisa, played by Sally Hawkins, did a splendid job and gave quite a performance. She was convincing and interesting, although I would have written her character a little differently so that the audience could have more ably connected with her. Michael Shannon played the villainous agent and did a very good job, although his character was incredibly odd and confusing regarding motivation for his anti-social behavior. Didn't care for the character or his performance, and I especially didn't care for what it represented either. Richard Jenkins played Elisa's good friend Giles, who was a closeted homosexual and of course stereotypically a struggling artist. I didn't care for his character either, and I didn't really understand the point of it either. Octavia Spencer played Elisa's other friend, Zelda, who was a sharp tongued cleaning lady; in other words, she played herself. She is an amazing actress, but wasn't given anything to really work with; she was a huge waste in this film. Last but not least, Doug Jones played the sea creature, and of course performed spectacularly given that his character had no audible lines but relied mainly on body language to communicate. A great cast, that was unfortunately put to poor use.
Guillermo del Toro's best film ever is Pan's Labyrinth and The Shape of Water doesn't hold even a shadow to that film's wonder and splendor. I am going to count this as one of the director's poor films, despite winning him an Oscar for Best Director and Best Picture along with nine other nominations and two other wins. The writing was perhaps the most atrocious of all the elements of the film and was the main reason why I didn't care for the film at all. First of all is the pointless sexual content, which was gratuitous to the point of being gross and distasteful; nobody want's to see anyone masturbate in a feature film woman or man. It is awkward and detracts from the story, along with all sexual content. And yes this happened throughout the film, so that was unpleasant. Also, the social justice themes that were present at every part of the film as well also distracted from the narrative of the story. What I didn't care was that the United States, the military, the U.S. government, and those that protect it were depicted in such a ruthless manner; I believe this representation was purposeful and deliberate and something I don't want to see in a world where I am trying escape reality. This film was a politically correct, social justice poster child which is most likely why it won Best Picture and Best Director. It was so unlike anything else Guillermo del Toro had written or directed, and regardless of what the Academy Awards believes, I think it was some of his poorest writing and therefore poorest film thus far that I have seen. Surprisingly the best part, and only redeeming element of the entire film was the musical score by Alexandre Desplat, who I usually do not care for. However, in this film his music was breathtaking and beautiful; it was original, elegant, alien yet familiar. He created something truly memorable in the world of musical scores, and especially his theme for this film was incredible. I highly recommend the music of this film, and only that; everything else can be discarded (the soundtrack is on Spotify). There were snippets of the cinematography, by Dan Laustsen, that were quite good, but nothing near as good as Pan's Labyrinth. I didn't care for this film whatsoever and was completely disappointed with it. It is a shame, because it could have been so much better, but it was clouded with political correctness and social justice politics to the point where the fantastical, simple story was lost. Hopefully he doesn't kill Pinocchio when he directs it in the coming years
 The Shape of Water trailer
The Shape of Water interviews
Venom trailer (not sure about this one).