The Shape Of Water--Movie Review! 🐟🥚

As mentioned in my previous post, my husband and I went to see The Shape of Water, the new Guillermo del Toro movie, on Valentine's Day, partly because it seemed to be a romantic movie, but also because of the seemingly Deaf character who communicated through sign language. 

We were really excited to go see it, my husband especially, was excited at the idea of not needing captioning for parts of the movie to understand dialogue, and after a few weeks of his busy week schedule, he was lucky enough to have Valentine's Day off for a day of fun in the sun and romantic outings 💕💕💕. Normally, if we go to the movies, we go during the matinee time so there are little to no lines, and the tickets aren't quite as overpriced as normal lol. This time, however, we went around sundown, so it was a lot busier than normal, but my husband has sharp eyes and managed to get us a parking spot right in front! ^^ which was really appreciated, as I have problems with my feet that make walking a little difficult and painful at times. 

Normally, we have the whole theater to ourselves, since we tend to go see movies months after their original release, so I was a little nervous about finding a good seat and how crowded I imagined it would be, so imagine my surprise, when the whole theater was almost completely empty!! Apart from two other couples, it was almost deserted!!

Since my husband insists on sitting very high up, we made our way almost to the very top spots and sat down in the middle and were able to talk amongst ourselves before the commercials started. Back when we went to see It, there was a group of girls that sat behind us, who thought it was a little hilarious to see us signing, as well as the sound of my husband's voice, which of course, made me really angry, but also uncomfortable, so I'm always relieved when we're either alone or mostly alone in a theater. 

While waiting for the movie to start, we saw a trailer for an upcoming movie with John Krasinski (Jim from The Office) and Emily Blunt, that seemed to feature sign language in it as well!! Unfortunately, my husband didn't understand the PSE in the trailer :( but he still got excited and said we have to go see it when it comes out :) The trailer was a little hard for him to understand, since the whole point was "absolutely no sound!!", but he still seemed very interested in going so I guess that'll be our next movie outing, in sha Allah~

Of course, we knew that The Shape of Water was rated R, and while they mentioned there were going to be some kind of sexual themes in the movie, we (naïvely) assumed there wasn't going to be anything too intense or overtly sexual... and almost immediately, we were proven wrong. In the very beginning of the movie, while the opening credits were showing up, the main character (at this point, unnamed) was full frontal nude and also masturbating x.x I instantly regretted picking this movie and telling him about it and how much I wanted to see it. We both looked away, and after a few times, it passed and we were able to set into the rest of the movie :)

Eliza with Giles, her neighbour

The movie itself was a little slow at the beginning, you're introduced to Eliza, the main character and learn that she's mute, not d/Deaf and works at some kind of government building during the Cold War, who are trying to find some way to get a man into space before the russians. As a character, Eliza is a really relatable (at least to me)! She's very shy and tends to keeps to herself and her small group of friends, her co-worker, Zelda and her neighbour, Giles and is very funny and easy going.

Eliza with her best friend, Zelda!

The other thing that I really identified with was how everyone, especially the scientists and main security guy at the building look down on Eliza and act like she's too stupid to understand anything, which allows her to sneak things under their very noses and get away with it for quite a while :D
Even after they figure out something is going down, not even once do they even think it could possibly be Eliza or Zelda, because they're "just the help" and therefore couldn't possibly do anything. 

Giles, and the jello pie

Near the beginning of the movie, they hint that there's something unusual about why Giles, her neighbour is currently unemployed and unable to find work, but it's shown as some kind of dark, unspoken secret. Another running theme with Giles is this advert of a happy family eating Jello, that he paints almost through the first half of the movie. Eliza and Giles frequent a diner that sells some kind of pie made out of... you guessed it, jello, that neither of them seem to be able to swallow. This is shown when Giles open the fridge to put away the slice of pie Eliza coudln't eat, only to show an entire fridge full of identical, barely eaten slices. Clearly, Giles is going to this pie shop for something other than the pie....

The fish creature in the movie, is quite something to look at! First time he appears on screen, is him mostly underwater, all you see is his hand, and it certainly leads to a rush of excitement and only fuels the desire to fully see what it looks like, and thankfully, this happens sooner rather than later! The creature or monster, is some  sort of tealish/green colour and walks and stands on two feet, although he is normally just relaxing or swimming in a pool or upwards-standing tank. Eliza is able to become friends with and bond with the creature, who my husband and I called "Eggs", partially because she is the only person in the movie who shows him any kind of kindness and understanding, but also by funnily enough, feeding him boiled eggs! Something Eggs seems to greatly enjoy haha! She also dances with him by sneaking in a record player, something that goes unnoticed for the most part, until one of the scientists happens to go check on Eggs at random and sees them dancing. Thankfully, the scientist is too shocked/surprised and instead of telling everyone, just leaves and pretends nothing happened.


Something that greatly disappointed both my husband and I, was the sign language in the movie. Captioning devices are so awful and crappy that my husband prefers to forgo using one and instead relies on me to tell him everything that's said and happening in the movie. When he heard that there was a movie that supposedly featured a Deaf character that spoke sign language, he jumped at the chance to see it... only for the sign language to be so english-y in grammar, that he couldn't understand anything :( The first time he saw Eliza signing, he got extremely irritated and asked me what she saying, something I could only understand, because of the on-screen subtitles.

Overall, the whole movie was really suspenseful and exciting, with an opening that is a little slow to start, but when it does, it picks up pace quickly and leaves you wanting more and more, throughout the whole movie. The only thing that left sour tastes in my mouth was all of the sexual themes and scenes in the movie (including a full on sex scene) as well as an upsetting scene where Eggs eats a cat in front of its owner :,( During this scene, it came so unexpectedly that I burst into tears when it came on and had to look away. Partly, I'm happy I went to see it, since I'm a huge Guillermo del Toro fan, as well as supporting a movie with PSE in it, but I also really wish I had picked a different movie to end our Valentine's Day date. It was a very exciting and interesting movie, but I can definitely say we won't be buying it once it comes out on dvd.