The Shape of Water

A beautiful cinematic caress that delighted me both with a beautifully told sci-fi story from a time when there was no need to overwhelm the viewer with special effects, and with a creative stylistic hand that manages to upgrade the story effortlessly to the demands of modern audiences. Weak on the emotions and with a slightly overwrought script, but excellent actors and top-notch direction referring to the film formulas of the fifties. (02/14/2018)

Del Toro is on his best ever form. He has turned the story of the origin of Abe Sapien to an Oscar-winning picture that plays with the rules of the genre. Sally Hawkins is fantastic and convincingly falls in love with the creature from the black lagoon. We even get some full-frontals. The perfect, period socio-political commentary (he even dares to claim that some Communists can be good) is slightly disrupted by gay/feminist offerings that somewhat divert from the story. The stylization, the music, the make-up… just perfect. A fairytale for adults in the very best sense. (02/17/2018)

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. (09/27/2017)

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. (02/14/2018)

Guillermo Del Toro and his new film The Shape of Water unfortunately didn't impress me and del Toro has disappointed me after a long time. While The Shape of Water garnered rave reviews and won awards at the Golden Globes for Best Director and Best Score, and I certainly can't deny the solid direction, the period atmosphere and decent performances, Michael Shannon as the bad guy is perhaps the best thing about the whole film, but the rest of the cast left me cold. The film has quite a plodding pace, an unlikeable main character who is so desperate that she's having it out with a Fish Man, and too much romance for my taste that the suspense and the few brutal scenes remain rather in the background. Surprisingly the humour works here though (“Never trust a man even if he is flat down there”). As a romantic fairytale about a mute girl who falls in love with a monster it seems to work, as a horror film it hardly works at all. But it will find its audience, a female audience I suppose. 45% (01/10/2018)