The Shape of Water
The Shape of Water
R | 01 December 2017 (USA)
The Shape of Water Trailers

An other-worldly story, set against the backdrop of Cold War era America circa 1962, where a mute janitor working at a lab falls in love with an amphibious man being held captive there and devises a plan to help him escape.

Reviews
Lucybespro It is a performances centric movie
Grimossfer Clever and entertaining enough to recommend even to members of the 1%
Hadrina The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful
Derry Herrera Not sure how, but this is easily one of the best movies all summer. Multiple levels of funny, never takes itself seriously, super colorful, and creative.
mmiecielica-80699 Part allegory, part spiritual sequel to the Creature from the Black Lagoon, this lovely, beautiful and *perfect* film is a deeply engaged with the social and political issues that have befallen the US since Trump announced his candidacy. It's more than a romantic fantasia about outsiders finding love. It's indictment of the monstrous evil that is fear of the other and Strickland is truly Trump's man. It's striking how much anger is boiling under the surface of this film. And how that anger makes the love story all the more tender.I have seen this film over a dozen times. I saw it once a day for each day it was in the theater I the small town where I live. Each time I see a new detail, a new simmer in deep waters of its thematic import. Red is passion. Green is the future. There's the wave on the wall. It is all around. Detail. Thought. Emotion. This is Del Toro's masterpiece and one of the very few best picture winners that Oscars got exactly right. It is not for everyone. In a lot of ways it is a very weird film, a cross between French art house cinema, a Sirk melodrama and the universal sci-fi films of the 50's. But for me it touched the very core of my being.Giles is the best gay character in Hollywood cinema.
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. ****
jevticmilica Thanks God for "fast forward" option, that's the only way to watch this film. So boring.
Adrian Chudek I never write review on IMDb, but because of this film I have to do it.First of all, I totally don't understand why this film won the Oscar. I have never seen a more cliché and overrated movie in my life. Don't waist time and watch Three Billboards Outside Ebbing.