Movielogr

The Shape of Water (2017)

Directed by Guillermo del Toro

Romance | Science Fiction | Thriller

Most recently watched by sensoria, lordofthemovies, zombiefreak

Overview

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.

Rated R | Length 123 minutes

Actors

Sally Hawkins | Michael Shannon | Richard Jenkins | Octavia Spencer | Michael Stuhlbarg | Doug Jones | David Hewlett | Nick Searcy | Stewart Arnott | Nigel Bennett | Lauren Lee Smith | Martin Roach | Allegra Fulton | John Kapelos | Morgan Kelly | Marvin Kaye | Dru Viergever | Wendy Lyon | Cody Ray Thompson | Diego Fuentes | Madison Ferguson | Jayden Greig | Karen Glave | Danny Waugh | Dan Lett | Deney Forrest | Brandon McKnight | Clyde Whitham | Jonelle Gunderson | Cameron Laurie | Evgeny Akimov | Sergey Nikonov | Vanessa Oude-Reimerink | Alexey Pankratov | Shane Clinton Jarvis | Dave Reachill | Amanda Smith | Maxine Grossman

Viewing History (seen 1 time)

Date ViewedDeviceFormatSourceRating
12/09/2017Movie ScreenDigitalTheater9 stars
 

Viewing Notes

Beautiful.

Plays like a sequel to Creature from the Black Lagoon.
Or a remake of Creature Walks Among Us.
Sally Hawkins is typically great. Brave performance.
Michael Shannon same. Can play an asshole rather well.
Richard Jenkins is wonderful as always.
Doug Jones is magnificent. He deserves all the accolades for bring this creature to life.

Of course a ton a credit to Guillermo del Toro for making this story a reality. This has more thrills and heart than anything Universal could think of doing in their aborted Dark Universe. Love, love, love that del Toro tricked the arthouse crowd into seeing a monster movie.

My audience at Cinemark Century Evanston was the usual senior crowd. Was hard to read them during the movie but at least they were quiet. There was applause at the end.

So much is covered in this movie. Given that it’s set in the late 50s it touches on many points from racism, homophobia, misogyny, sexism, etc. all surrounding the core of loneliness under this veil of 50s espionage paranoia.

As a film it took a few beats for me to warm up to it but when it hits I was fully engaged and entranced by the creature and the love story. Definitely had me wanting to revisit the Creature movies.

I will likely go see this again when it goes wide in a couple of weeks.

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