If someone asked you which film over the last year has paid homage to the history of cinema the most, I doubt a movie about a love affair between a mute woman and an amphibious humanoid would come to mind, but Guillermo del Toro's The Shape of Water is swimming with references from the Golden Age of cinema, from the creature features of the 30s and 40s to the biblical epics who's massive scale dazzled audiences in the 50s.
In this video essay, the team over at ScreenPrism not only explores these references and homages to the films that ushered in a new era of filmmaking in the United States, but also explains how they work to add depth and context to a story that can only be described as "a fairytale for adults."
[Editors Note: Beware! Spoilers ahead!]
As much as cinephiles will view The Shape of Water as a love letter del Toro wrote to them, the film is more accurately a love letter del Toro wrote to cinema. In his youth, the director became enamored with cult horror films like Frankenstein, The Creature from the Black Lagoon, and King Kong, but while most viewers would classify these titles as Man vs. Monster narratives, del Toro saw them as beautiful love stories about tragically misunderstood creatures.
This is where you can begin to see the framework of The Shape of Water take shape. It's a story founded on the idea that, perhaps, monsters like Frankenstein, King Kong, and the Creature from the Black Lagoon are simply mistaken as dangerous foes threatening the lives of humans, when in reality they may just be trying to understand and communicate their curiosities about a world with which they're unfamiliar.
There are many interesting themes that come through ScreenPrism's reading of del Toro's use of homage, but one that is especially powerful is this idea that the true monster in the film isn't the one that looks like a monster, but instead the one that behaves like one. You can see this narrative in many stories, perhaps most famously in Beauty and the Beast, in which the handsome prince is literally turned into a beast because of his beastly behavior, and then is returned to his human form once he behaves "like a human."
'The Shape of Water'
But del Toro puts a spin on this classic narrative by giving the "beast" of his film, the Amphibian Man, plenty of humanity from the beginning. He has the capacity to love and treat others the way he wants to be treated, whereas Colonel Strickland, who is the mirror image of Gaston, has the least humanity out of all of the characters in the film, despite his complete dedication to upholding social norms and preserving the status quo.
Another important aspect of this take on the "the monster is us" device is that del Toro doesn't require the Amphibian Man to assimilate in order to receive that which he seeks, nor does he require Elisa to fight to "see past" his humanoid appearance. He's not forced to become something he's not because she loves him for who he is. In other words, while those in power are examining the threat level of the Amphibian Man's otherness, Elisa embraces and welcomes it, and because of this, their love prevails.
The Shape of Water has certainly struck a chord with viewers and critics alike. Not only is it Certified Fresh on Rotton Tomatoes with a 92%, the film is up for 13 Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actress (Sally Hawkins), and Best Screenplay—just one shy of the Big Five. Regardless of accolades and approval ratings, this film is about a lot more than an uncomfortable sex scene. It just might be del Toro's most intimate expression to and about cinema in a time when otherness is just as misunderstood as it ever has been. Maybe, just maybe, cinema can be a bridge.
I read somewhere that there are only two best-case scenarios for a great screenplay—either it meets the expectations of the audience or it doesn’t. Either they sigh in relief or gasp out loud in shock.
Giving your audience what they want shouldn’t be difficult for a practiced writer. A character has a desire, and they achieve it at the end of the story. Boom! Expectations met!
But there’s something oddly satisfying about not meeting those expectations in a screenplay, leaving the audience shaken in disbelief.
Many compelling screenplays use something called misdirection—it's sneaky, it's intelligent, and it takes viewers somewhere unexpected. It's all about planting subtle clues that seem insignificant until a revelation forces us to reconsider everything.
Let’s examine how this narrative tool, when used thoughtfully, can transform straightforward storytelling into something more complex and satisfying.
What is Misdirection?
Misdirection is distracting the audience to mislead them, preventing them from getting on to your scheme of actions, until you finally reveal the truth. In essence, it is a style of storytelling, where the “audience proposes, filmmaker disposes.”
In misdirection, a filmmaker manipulates information, character(s), and their timing in the narrative while building the conflict, until everything falls into place to reveal an unexpected resolution that does not match the audience’s expectations.
Many times, the audience is also purposefully misdirected by exploiting their biases, prejudices, and gullibility.
Why Would Any Filmmaker Misdirect Their Audience?
A story is as interesting as its narration. Be it a bedtime story or Nolan’s Inception, if the narrative is linear and flat, it may be less engaging to your audience.
Misdirection is one of the finest tools that acts like a hook to your story. Misdirecting elements are thought-provoking, working with the audience’s psychology to throw them off guard.
Fiction gives you the freedom to alter realities, but even while misdirecting, it is important that the dots connect effectively by the end of the story. Information shouldn’t be irrelevant and without context.
How Do You Misdirect Your Audience?
You can use any story element to misdirect the audience, but the most commonly used are characters, sound, props, plot points, strategic information reveal, and the time of the incident of any event.
Examples of Misdirection in Great Films
Gone Girl by David Fincher
Misdirection by unreliable narrator
This is one of those stories that is completely narrated in misdirection.
The film opens through husband Nick’s (Ben Affleck) perspective, who becomes the prime suspect in the disappearance of his wife, Amy (Rosamund Pike), on their fifth marriage anniversary. As the investigation and media frenzy take over, we are let into the lives of our two main characters and led to believe that Amy might actually be dead.
We learn about their failing marriage and Nick’s extramarital affair. Thus, when Nick lies through his teeth about his loving relationship with Amy to the police, he instantly becomes an unreliable narrator in the story.
Thus, even though his alibis are believable, you cannot trust him and can’t take his word. Rather, you, with the police, start suspecting him.
This automatically shifts all your trust to Amy instead, even though you know even less about her than Nick. Wonderfully, you have begun rooting for her now.
What you might not realize is that you have been misdirected to dislike Nick as a character, so that you automatically take Amy’s side right from the beginning, until it is revealed that Amy is alive and purposefully in hiding.
This is one of the many misdirections in the film.
By regulating how the audience judges the characters, their morality, and their intentions, a filmmaker often shatters the expectations of the audience with misdirection to give them a more surprising resolution than expected.
The Sixth Sense by M. Night Shyamalan
Misdirection by character
Just by establishing a character in a certain way and revealing information about them strategically, a filmmaker can determine the character’s impression on the audience.
This is what M. Night Shyamalan does in The Sixth Sense. The magician of misdirection keeps both the characters and the audience engaged, looking for the ghost, all the while narrating the events through the ghost’s perspective!
The beauty of a nuanced misdirection lies in the clues left throughout a film’s events, leaving you both frustrated and delighted at the same time that you didn’t pick up on them!
Money Heist by Álex Pina
Misdirection by sound
In the Spanish drama series, Money Heist, the makers use a powerful misdirection but with a genius twist. This misdirection is not only for the audience per se, but for the main character—the Professor (Álvaro Morte), too.
In the Season 2 finale of the drama series, the Professor and Raquel (Itziar Ituño), the love of his life and newly minted partner-in-crime known as “Lisbon,” are sprinting through a dense, shadowy forest. The air crackles with urgency as police hounds close in, their shouts breaking the eerie silence of the forest.
Eventually, they are forced to separate, with a radio as their only mode of communication. Raquel ends up taking refuge in a barn, but not for too long. The police arrive, and she is completely surrounded. A gun to her head, she is ordered to compromise the Professor, but she’s steel-willed and denies the police any information.
All the while, the Professor is on the radio with her, frightened and worried, begging her to tell them everything in exchange for her life. The Professor frantically runs through the forest to reach Raquel, when… bang! A gunshot rips through the radio.
The Professor stops dead, the forest swallowing his anguished cry. But as the episode races to its close, the fog clears. The shot? A cruel ruse. She’s alive and in police custody. The Professor’s despair was their bait, and he bit—hard.
What I love about this particular sequence is that the filmmakers don’t use misdirection as a generalized cliff-hanger of “what happens next.”
Instead of revealing that Raquel is alive in an upcoming episode of the next season, they make a choice to reveal it at the tail end of the same episode.
Raquel is a crucial character in the series at this point, so to lose her in the narrative would have been a huge plot twist. At times, thrillers do go for the cheap surprise, whether it makes sense or not. But in Money Heist, the reveal elevates the value of the misdirection because now the audience knows things are going to change forever—for better or worse.
Final Destination 5 by Steven Quale
Misdirection by props
The sequence leading up to Candice’s fall in Final Destination 5 is a series of brilliantly crafted misdirections that keep us on the edge of our seats until the mishap finally happens.
The misdirections also seem to be symbolic, as the death of poor Candice (Ellen Wroe) is a sharp irony. Throughout the scene, we keep worrying about the loose screw in her gymnastic apparatus but how she is killed by it in the end is absolutely unexpected—just how a nuanced misdirection should be.
Psycho by Alfred Hitchcock
Misdirection by casting
Killing the heroine halfway through the film was a risky but brilliantly used misdirection by Alfred Hitchcock in Psycho, especially considering the film dates back to the ‘60s.
An actor’s face value is as important as their acting skills. Big actors usually have strong plot armor and are expected to survive the story.
In Psycho, when a star like Janet Leigh is killed off midway through the movie, the audience is thrown off guard and does not know what to assume, whose story to follow, or what to expect next. This amplifies the shock factor of the plot twist.
Misdirection can turn your story into a fun experience with plenty of unexpected twists and turns. When done well, a reveal should prompt viewers to think, "Of course! How did I miss that?" rather than, "That came out of nowhere!"
The audience hates being deceived. So, not meeting audience expectations doesn’t mean you lie and fill the screenplay with deceiving information, revealed in an untimely way, aiming for a plot twist in the climax that feels isolated and seemingly unmotivated.
Also, be careful not to clutter your narrative with forced misdirections.
For a better understanding, check out the examples in the article—how each misdirection is a strategic literary device, not just a stylized form of storytelling.
'The Shape of Water'
