Gideon Lawrence’s review published on Letterboxd:
Guillermo del Toro’s “The Shape of Water” is a valiant attempt to inject creativity into the “star-crossed lovers” trope that ultimately winds up a convoluted, overwrought mess. The film, which clocks in at a blader-punching two hours, follows a horny pool cleaner (Sally Hawkins) or something as she engages in a splashy romance with some kind of frog boy (Doug Jones), and that’s about as far as I could follow it because ten minutes in to my viewing I realized I have never had to pee so bad in my entire life.
Set at the height of the Cold War, the film includes a bitter rivalry between the United States Army, or possibly Navy, and some Russian secret agents who are, like, kind of the good guys but still Russian so I don’t know. Also, they both want to use frog boy to win the Space Race? I must have been in the restroom when they explained how that’s supposed to work.