This is not a good movie. It's not well written. It's not well paced. It's not entertaining.
I had high expectations in this movie, being Oscar winner and by Del Toro and all. But unfortunately it turned out to be a massive on screen disaster and frown fest, a big mess. It starts beautifully though with a nice underwater intro. The it's only getting worse. We see the daily morning routine of the mute cleaner who strangely reminds us of a sad and disturbed version of Amélie, Del Toro maybe had in mind a similar quirky, sensitive and charming character. Something went terribly wrong. The cleaner has a gay artist neighbour and a bestie at work, played charmingly by Octavia Spencer, unfortunately her role is just a stereotype of the slightly overweight, loyal side kick with a heart of gold. Then we meet the antagonist, played by Michael Shannon, another stereotype, white male sadistic mean pervert military guy with a heart of stone. Yaaawn. The fish man the cleaner falls for is basically the creature from the black lagoon. Why does the cleaning lady start having romantic feelings for the black lagoon creature? Because he can't speak either and they both like boiled eggs, so they have something in common, perfect match, ok? Does Del Toro really believe lonely women at a certain age are that desperate?
Del Toro uses same filters and production design as in Hellboy. The background is America in the 50s with style and music reminding not only console players strongly of Fallout or Bioshock. The ballroom scene in black and white is from the Artist.
There is no original good idea in the movie, we've seen it all before, but better.
Why did it get Best Film Oscar? Maybe there is deeper political reason for this, I have no other explanation. I don't recommend this movie to anyone. Save your precious time and money and avoid this mess!