rickh98 Guillermo del Toro leads us on a beautifully compelling, and oddly romantic story about a woman and a fish who fall in love.The film opens underwater, and although the later scenes do not, the set design and lighting makes us feel like we never really surface. deep Blues and swampy greens paint the film, everything I remember is shaded with these colours, it is a director which such a fine control over colour palettes I think Wes Anderson will probably feel a little outdone.Then we meet Elisa, we follow her through her morning routine, she likes eggs, is sexually frustrated, and she can't speak, she's a mute. Sally Hawkins teases life into Elisa, she could easily have played her as straight up quiet, introverted and shy, but there's so much more to her. In one scene she signs "F*** You" to Michael Shannon's character, for no other reason than her own enjoyment, she gives a smug little grin after doing it too. I like to imagine Sally Hawkins receiving a script from Guillermo del Toro thinking "brilliant, finally my chance to win an Oscar", only to open up the screenplay and realise all her lines are effectively facial expressions. She does brilliantly regardless.The film is well paced, but the blossoming romance between Elisa and Cpt Fish Finger is put rather dumbly into a montage. We don't spend enough real time with the pair as they begin to fall in love. For example by the film's half way point, Elisa is planning to break Fish Cake out of the research facility, effectively risking her life for him, but all we've seen up to this point is them eating eggs together and him watching her dance with some weird French music playing over the top. I saw no real motive for her to risk her life at this point. I wanted to see real scenes between the two of them; how do you fall in love with a frog looking guy you can't really talk to? I guess even Del Toro was unsure on that one, he skipped over the answer.The film's most redeeming quality is in it's character's. Richard Jenkins' character stood out, he is quirky and oddly magnetic, I wanted to see more of him. He got nominated for Best Supporting Actor because Sally Hawkins relied on his humour and daintiness to paint and strengthen her character. Michael Shannon as well plays a baddie straight out of the Del Toro's school of baddies, he's always sucking hard boiled sweets, his fingers bleed and get progressively darker as his character does. No character is alike. Everyone is brought to life brilliantly by the actor playing them. Octavia Spencer plays every role she ever has played, mouthy, sassy black woman - but she plays it well I wont protest.Allow yourself to fall into the trance Del Toro has created. Don't resist. It's odd and quirky and if you spend your time questioning that, the film will pass over you.

hirogryn I've been waiting a year to get to see this movie. I have to admit, I had pretty high expectations! I was a little let down, that's why I only gave it an 8. But in general, it was a good movie! I definitely recommend it to all of us creatures of the night! The ending, gawd. Did not expect that! I pretty much never cry out of happiness, but this ending did the trick.

davideo-2 STAR RATING: ***** Saturday Night **** Friday Night *** Friday Morning ** Sunday Night * Monday MorningElisa (Sally Hawkins) is a mute woman, only able to communicate through sign language. The only person who really understands her is her friend Zelda (Octavia Spencer), who works with her as a cleaner at a top secret research facility, where experiments are being carried out on the otherworldly Amphibian Man (Doug Jones.) Elisa comes to form a bond with this beautiful creature and becomes involved in a plot to break him free, setting her on a path with Richard Strickland (Michael Shannon), a ruthless senior employee at the place she works.Guillermo del Toro returns out of nowhere, writing and directing this whimsical little slice of fantasy that further showcases his talents as a filmmaker. After becoming known for action adventure fantasies, such as the Hellboy films and Pan's Labyrinth, here he delivers something with more of a beating emotional heart at its core, that seems to have an equalities agenda beating at its heart, with a lead character who uses sign language, living with a closet homosexual, and being best friends with a woman of colour, at a time when this group in society were stuck in menial, dead end jobs they had little hope of getting out of, whilst straight white men really ruled the world. In spite of the typically incredible special effects job done on the Amphibian Man, which don't forget to give him the sweetest, most endearing facial features, its the performances that drive the film, and in the lead role, Hawkins is perfectly cast evoking the right amount of empathy, vulnerability and compassion from this character, making her at times feel even more alien than the creature. By contrast, Shannon, although playing to type, is no less cold and scary as the unfeeling authoritarian determined to keep everything in his twisted version of order. If you can overlook the blatant political correctness, a tiresome and not entirely necessary subplot involving Russian espionage, and the ambiguous but no doubt unwholesome definition of what a woman having sex with some alien thing could be called (beasteality?!?), then this is a stirring and sensational piece of work that, as well as being a dazzling visual experience, perfectly challenges the social attitudes and prejudices of its early 1960s setting. ****

betty dalton A romancic story with a twist. That is what "The Shape of Water" is. A mute cleaning lady saves an alien creature from death and hides it from the government who wants to kill it. Will she be able to protect it? It could have been a big hollywood romance, but director Guillermo del Toro mixes in some ingredients usually not found in Hollywood romances, (masturbation, homosexualtity, torture) which makes it only suited for 16 years and older. It could have been for all ages though, just like E.T. was if the story had been softened a bit. Or it could have been as dark as his earlier masterpiece "Pan's Labyrinth", if the director had gone wild, but the director choose to compromise and now the end result has become a bit bland. Not a great romance, but not a great fantasy horror either. I fear this movie has fallen prey to the mediocre standards of Hollywood, because it wants to please everyone.Is this movie a symbol for todays social and economic problems? Many have talked about that. Judge for yourself. While watching it, I just experienced it as a dark, romantic story.Maybe it was supposed to be funny at points, but it didnt make me laugh really out loud once. The story is more endearing and a little bit mysterious. The story is a bit slow in the middle, that is its biggest flaw. Half an hour could have been cut out of it easily, without hurting the flow of the story. I really felt that the story lacked suspense and speed in the middle. Fortunately the ending has got a great climax. But I must be honest about the fact that I dont really understand the hype about this movie. It is certainly very good, but it is sugarcoated too much to make it stand out above other good movies. A bit too much sugar and a bit too little drama. That would be my criticism. Lovely movie anyway...