Guillermo del Toro is a man of many talents, and just about all of them seem to be on display in The Shape of Water. Commonly, del Toro is understood to split his time between sumptuous art films and more Hollywood-style science fiction and action fare. The Shape of Water splits the difference between Pan's Labyrinth (representing the art house side of things) and Hellboy (his blockbusters) as a beautifully crafted, visually poetic piece of cinema that doubles as an updated take on the Universal Studios-esque monster movie. But it also shows the common ground between the two types of del Toro movies, thanks to its shared focus on outsiders and its stunning use of practical effects.
Del Toro is commonly understood as the fanboy who became a filmmaker, and indeed this does look like the work of a man who (as del Toro does) owns an entirely separate house where he stores books, toys, and memorabilia. The creature in this film, for example, is both similar and different to the titular monster in the 1954 Universal horror movie The Creature from the Black Lagoon. They're both humanoid aquatic beasts, but del Toro's seems like the fan fiction update, complete with the ability to learn sign language and the equipment to have sex with humans.
Here, we see del Toro's status as the movie lover who can't help but imagine his own take on a classic, yet would never dare include a detail that is implausible. Yes, this plays out with Elisa explaining to Zelda—and in turn, the audience—exactly how the creature's reproductive genitalia works, but it also means that del Toro understands the careful play of suspension of belief. We don't get the really zany stuff until the final third of the movie, when we've been living in the world for a while already and the action has picked up a fast enough pace that we don't notice things we may be otherwise incredulous about.
Part of the way that del Toro pulls off this sleight of hand is through classical filmmaking chops. In his university days, del Toro wrote a book-length essay about Alfred Hitchcock, and Hitchcock's imprint is indelibly evident on del Toro's technique in The Shape of Water. There's a consummately psychological yet totally seamless editing style that plays on the viewer's lust and anxieties to create a love story that doubles as a nerve-wracking thriller. And while this is one of del Toro's most optimistic films, we don't exactly get the sense that the characters in the film are innocent. But this does not make them unsympathetic. While in Hitchcock's films, there's a sense that characters have transgressed in a dangerous or anti-social way, in del Toro's we're lead to believe that Elisa, Giles, and Hoffstetler had no choice but to rebel against their stifling society.
