Directed by:
Guillermo del ToroCinematography:
Dan LaustsenComposer:
Alexandre DesplatCast:
Sally Hawkins, Michael Shannon, Richard Jenkins, Doug Jones, Michael Stuhlbarg, Octavia Spencer, David Hewlett, Nick Searcy, Nigel Bennett, Stewart Arnott (more)VOD (3)
Plots(1)
From master story teller Guillermo del Toro, comes The Shape of Water – an other-worldly fairy tale, set against the backdrop of Cold War era America circa 1963. In the hidden high-security government laboratory where she works, lonely Elisa (Sally Hawkins) is trapped in a life of silence and isolation. Elisa's life is changed forver when she and co-worker Zelda (Octavia Spencer) discover a secret classified experiment. (Fox Searchlight Pictures US)
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Reviews (14)
An utterly unique and bizarre retro-futuristic fantasy, an original mix of childish naivety, teenage infatuation and adult sexuality, combined with occasional brutality. Michael Shannon and his black fingers are so over-the-top. I get the Oscars, it's "something different" than what’s usual in the film medium, but I didn’t get a proper film experience.
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A great fairy tale with a deliberately B-movie story, but with its message and how it caresses on the soul, it trumps films that are more ambitious. Sally Hawkins is magical in the lead role, and Michael Shannon has created such a hideously entertaining story that I think it should belong to film history - his ambitious maniac is an example of someone completely unique in recent times. Del Toro's precise directing and Desplat's music, whose main motif you want to constantly whistle during the film, wraps it all into a beautiful experience that was seriously worth waiting for, although it premiered more than two months ago across the pond.
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A loose sequel to Guillermo del Toro’s beloved classic Creature from the Black Lagoon with a subtle retro look and a unique
and, I’d dare say, beautiful monster. It cannot be compared to Pan’s Labyrinth, as the older movie was more surreal,
cruel, sad and less Hollywoodish. The Shape of Water is a charming American genre movie with a simple, even
predictable premise, but created with love and with a load of lovely references for movie geeks. "Beauty and the Beast"
meets "Romeo & Juliet". A fairy tale for adults in which the heroine no longer reads a fantasy book but masturbates in the
bath. Given that it was made by Guillermo, there is a relative lack of of blood and violence. We get to see a black
woman, a gay, a Trump-like American general and a secret Russian scientist with his heart in the right place. All decently
written and directed, with everything is as it should be, though the runtime is slightly too long. One hundred minutes
would have been ideal.
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Set design great, nicely shot, a beautiful creature... and then there’s the rest of it. Messy and flaccid, of questionable artistic value, quietly loud, stereotypical – like it's all set in some artificial town full of robots playing humans. And yet they are all completely horny. I don't understand the Oscars (except for the sets), but neither do a lot of other people, so it's okay. 50%.
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Carefully, I expected a mysterious fairytale, into which Guillermo del Toro would pour in a smaller amount, in the best case scenario, and a larger amount, in the worst case scenario, of depression, the main character of his Pan's Labyrinth. However, everything is different, and instead, I am getting a retro version of Splash! for eighteen and older narrated by Richard Jenkins. Among the participating actors, Michael Shannon is the one who stands out the most, although he sells his traditionally wild and scruffy face as much as he can, his storyline as an ultra-negative agent falls somewhat deaf due to unsuccessful family/marital scenes. I perceive that the beauty and the beast are given the main focus, surprisingly at the expense of the development of other characters' storylines but still, this thoroughly captivating spectacle is very likable to me in terms of genre. It is narrated innocently and honestly, and does not try to be anything it is not even for a moment.
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Gallery (78)
Photo © Fox Searchlight Pictures
![The Shape of Water - Photos](http://image.pmgstatic.com/cache/resized/w663/files/images/film/photos/162/282/162282978_eaeace.jpg)
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