The Shape Of Water proved there are only so many ways to write human/fish love stories

Screen Junkies’ The Dailies have compiled a quick video that sets key scenes from both films side-by-side, thus demonstrating that there’s only so many ways to tell the story of a human falling in love with a sea creature. In Splash, it’s a mermaid (in Zindel’s play, it’s a dolphin), and, as in all of the aforementioned stories, the starry-eyed hero saves it from a tank in a government lab with the assistance of a sympathetic fellow scientist. Shape also mirrors Splash in the emphasis on salt-filled home bathtubs, as well as climactic waterfront scenes with government agents swarming on the doomed couple, who find themselves in an underwater embrace as the credits roll.

None of this is to lob further accusations of plagiarism at Del Toro, whose film is a visual masterpiece packed with two of the most gripping performances of the year in Sally Hawkins and Michael Shannon. Rather, it’s simply evidence that, should some budding scribe out there want to write a human/fish love story, they might want to update the playbook a bit.

[via Cinema Blend]