History YMMV / TheShapeOfWater

** In one of their final meals together, the Asset happily signs 'egg' to Elisa, to which she responds with the 'You'll Never Know' sequence. We see her struggle to finish saying the statement 'You'll never know just how much I care' but only signs the first part, 'You'll Never Know,' to which the Asset snarls and squirms with despair. Was the Asset merely cheerfully referencing the way they met, but was saddened by their inevitable parting? Or, considering that they had been regularly lovemaking for an untold amount of time, was the Asset asking about the prospect of a family together, to which he was told: 'You'll never know.'

** Giles is a lonely closeted gay man in the 1950s who is unable to find work despite his talent and feels out of place in American society.

** Impressively averted for the most part, what with Creator/GuillermoDelToro winning his first UsefulNotes/GoldenGlobe for the movie and racking up an impressive ''13 UsefulNotes/AcademyAward Nominations'', including both Best Director and Best Picture (which del Toro and the movie won). However, many people accused the Academy of snubbing Creator/DougJones' spellbinding performance as the Asset for Best Actor, selling the hell out of a [[PeopleInRubberSuits man in a fish costume]] as a romantic lead. What makes this even more unfair is that ''every'' other member of the main heroic ensemble was nominated [[note]](Creator/SallyHawkins, Creator/RichardJenkins, and Creator/OctaviaSpencer for Best Actress, Supporting Actor, and Supporting Actress, respectively)[[/note]] except for the leading man. Some fans believed that, had Jones not been playing [[SciFiGhetto a fish-person]], he would have gotten an automatic Best Actor nom.

* BigLippedAlligatorMoment: The [[spoiler:"You'll Never Know"]] sequence. Apart from some of the points mentioned in {{Narm}} down below, the scene also comes completely out of nowhere, and the movie never reflects on it nor pulls off a similar move again.

* SugarWiki/AwesomeMusic: The dreamy, fairy tale-like soundtrack by Creator/AlexandreDesplat earned universal acclaim and a second Oscar for him.

* SignatureScene: When Elisa expresses her devotion to The Asset by having Giles speak what she signs.

** Visually, its combination of TheFifties aesthetics, music and time period, plus the water motifs, make you feel you're watching a ''VideoGame/BioShock1'' movie adaptation.

* SciFiGhetto: Many people were baffled that the film [[AwardSnub wasn't nominated]] for either Best Makeup (despite the amazing prosthetics for the Asset being '''essential''' to the film's plot) or Best Actor for Creator/DougJones, who had to do everything Sally Hawkins did (including, acting, swimming, and ''dancing'') and still sell a believable leading man performance under 20 pounds of prosthetics for many hours a day, without even getting to have '''bathroom breaks'''. Many people suspected that the Academy's belief that prosthetic monster-suit performance is "not real acting" as the only reason Jones could possibly not have been nominated.

** '''The Asset!''' Watching the poor thing get beaten to a bloody pulp on a daily basis ForScience will have you investing in antidepressants like there's no tomorrow.

** Creator/SallyHawkins' butt really left an impression in the minds of a lot of filmgoers.
*** When it was revealed she would be appearing in ''Film/GodzillaKingOfTheMonsters2019'', jokes about her character wanting to fuck Godzilla quickly surfaced on the internet.

** Impressively averted for the most part, what with Creator/GuillermoDelToro winning his first UsefulNotes/GoldenGlobe for the movie and racking up an impressive ''13 UsefulNotes/AcademyAward Nominations'', including both Best Director and Best Picture (which del Toro and the movie won). However, many people accused the Academy of snubbing Creator/DougJones' spellbinding performance as the Asset for Best Actor, selling the hell out of a [[PeopleInRubberSuits man in a fish costume]] as a romantic lead. What makes this even more unfair is that ''every'' other member of the main heroic ensemble was nominated [[note]](Creator/SallyHawkins, Creator/RichardJenkins, and Creator/OctaviaSpencer for Best Actress, Supporting Actor, and Supporting Actress, respectively)[[/note]] except for the '''leading man'''. Some fans believed that, had Jones not been playing [[SciFiGhetto a fish-person]], he would have gotten an automatic Best Actor nom.

* AwardSnub: Impressively averted for the most part, what with Creator/GuillermoDelToro winning his first UsefulNotes/GoldenGlobe for the movie and racking up an impressive ''13 UsefulNotes/AcademyAward Nominations'', including both Best Director and Best Picture (which del Toro and the movie won). However, many people accused the Academy of snubbing Creator/DougJones' spellbinding performance as the Asset for Best Actor, selling the hell out of a [[PeopleInRubberSuits man in a fish costume]] as a romantic lead. What makes this even more unfair is that ''every'' other member of the main heroic ensemble was nominated [[note]](Creator/SallyHawkins, Creator/RichardJenkins, and Creator/OctaviaSpencer for Best Actress, Supporting Actor, and Supporting Actress, respectively)[[/note]] except for the '''leading man'''. Some fans believed that, had Jones not been playing [[SciFiGhetto a fish-person]], he would have gotten an automatic Best Actor nom.

* HilariousInHindsight: Building off the {{applicability}}, shortly after the film was released, Democrat ''Doug Jones'' defeated Republican Roy Moore, a judge who, much like Strickland, positioned himself as a moral crusader but who had long been dogged by rumors of pedophilia, for the Alabama Senate seat vacated by Attorney General Jeff Sessions, becoming Alabama's first Democratic Senator in over two decades.

* TheWoobie: '''The Asset!''' Watching the poor thing get beaten to a bloody pulp on a daily basis ForScience will have you investing in antidepressants like there's no tomorrow.

* HilariousInHindsight: Building off the {{applicability}}, shortly after the film was released, Democrat ''[[NamesTheSame Doug Jones]]'' defeated Republican Roy Moore, a judge who, much like Strickland, positioned himself as a moral crusader but who had long been dogged by rumors of pedophilia, for the Alabama Senate seat vacated by Attorney General Jeff Sessions, becoming Alabama's first Democratic Senator in over two decades.

* TheWoobie: '''The Asset!''' Watching the poor thing get beaten to a bloody pulp on a daily basis ForScience will have you investing in antidepressants like there's no tomorrow.

** Giles and Elisa watch the dance scene from ''Film/{{TheLittleColonel}}'', where Creator/{{ShirleyTemple}} dances with Bill "Bojangles" Robinson. This was the first interracial dance on film. Later, the soundtrack plays "Babalu" by Creator/{{DesiArnaz}}, one half of the first interracial couple on television. Both suggest an inversion of the ScaryBlackMan trope as represented in monster movies.

** Strickland's fingers that get bitten off and sewn back on never take and he walks around with two gangrenous, blackening fingers, one of which oozes pus at one point. [[spoiler:He then rips them both off in front of Zelda in her house.]]

* SpiritualAdaptation: Visually, its combination of TheFifties aesthetics, music and time period, plus the water motifs, make you feel you're watching a ''VideoGame/BioShock1'' movie adaptation.

* AwardSnub: Impressively averted for the most part, what with Creator/GuillermoDelToro winning his first Golden Globe for the movie and racking up an impressive ''13 Oscar Nominations'', including both Best Director and Best Picture (which del Toro and the movie won). However, many people accused the Academy of snubbing Creator/DougJones' spellbinding performance as the Asset for Best Actor, selling the hell out of a [[PeopleInRubberSuits man in a fish costume]] as a romantic lead. What makes this even more unfair is that ''every'' other member of the main heroic ensemble was nominated [[note]](Creator/SallyHawkins, Creator/RichardJenkins, and Creator/OctaviaSpencer for Best Actress, Supporting Actor, and Supporting Actress, respectively)[[/note]] except for the '''leading man'''. Some fans believed that, had Jones not been playing [[SciFiGhetto a fish-person]], he would have gotten an automatic Best Actor nom.

* CreepyCute: The Asset. He wouldn’t be out of place in a Lovecraftian horror story, but damn it, if he isn’t cute as hell.

** Some have seen ''The Shape of Water'' as being a [[GenderFlip gender-flipped]] remake of the 1984 film ''Film/{{Splash}}'' (which was released by Disney under the studio’s Creator/TouchstonePictures banner). The [[https://youtu.be/d0Kx3jqEGh4 comparisons between the two films]] would become even more apt once Disney bought 20th Century Fox (the studio that made ''The Shape of Water'') in 2018.[[labelnote:A]] Ironically, one of the many studios that producer Brian Grazer pitched his film ''Splash'' was '''20th Century Fox'''. According to the book ''Storming the Magic Kingdom: Wall Street, the Raiders, and the Battle for Disney'' by John Taylor, the script was rejected by the studio’s senior vice-president of worldwide production Richard Berger due to concerns that the “extensive underwater scenes” would have made the film “prohibitively expensive”.[[/labelnote]][[labelnote:B]]What’s even more ironic is that Richard Berger would later get fired from 20th Century Fox to work at Disney in which he became president of Disney’s “Touchstone Pictures” division. [[http://jimhillmedia.com/guest_writers1/b/leo_n_holzer/archive/2010/12/15/former-disney-ceo-ron-miller-recalls-his-own-quot-tron-quot-legacy.aspx When Disney CEO and founder of “Touchstone Pictures” Ron Miller handed the screenplay of “Splash” to Richard in order to see if he would like it, Berger told Ron that he had already read it back at 20th Century Fox]]; however once Richard read the script, he ended up liking it, thanks to a rewrite done by Lowell Ganz and Babaloo Mandel, which had significantly fewer underwater scenes than the original script written by Bruce Jay Friedman.[[/labelnote]]
* MemeticMutation: Plenty of jokes about sexual relations with fish have been made. Referenced by Jimmy Kimmel during the Oscars ceremony

** [[spoiler: The scene in which Giles is rejected by the counter boy at the diner is heartbreaking, if [[RealityEnsues predictable]], but the way that this is followed up with the revelation that the counter boy is also appallingly racist seems almost a cartoonishly opportunistic demonstration of villainy. So Giles has enough pie from this place to fill his fridge but he had never seen how this kid treats minorities?]]

* AwardSnub: Impressively averted for the most part, what with Creator/GuillermoDelToro winning his first Golden Globe for the movie and racking up an impressive ''13 Oscar Nominations'', including both Best Director and Best Picture (which del Toro and the movie won). However, many people accused the Academy of snubbing Creator/DougJones' spellbinding performance as the Asset for Best Actor, selling the hell out of a [[PeopleInRubberSuits man in a fish costume]] as a romantic lead. What makes this even more unfair is that ''every'' other member of the main heroic ensemble was nominated [[note]](Sally Hawkins, Richard Jenkins, and Octavia Spencer for Best Actress, Supporting Actor, and Supporting Actress, respectively)[[/note]] except for the '''leading man'''. Some fans believed that, had Jones not been playing [[SciFiGhetto a fish-person]], he would have gotten an automatic Best Actor nom.

** Sally Hawkins' butt really left an impression in the minds of a lot of filmgoers.

* DesignatedVillain: During the Asset's breakout, Giles is caught and nearly arrested by a security guard. However, Dr. Hoffstetler arrives at the last minute and gives the guard a lethal injection. The scene is played up as a BigDamnHero moment. Never mind the fact that the victim was an ordinary security guard who was JustFollowingOrders. Could also be seen as a case of ProtagonistCenteredMorality.