25th Feb2018

The Shape of Water (Film)

by timbaros

25446226_1541143735966479_8091554819932138640_n-1‘The Shape of Water’ is not your typical romance movie. In this new film, which just recently opened, a woman falls in love with a sea creature. Yes, a sea creature.

Sally Hawkins plays Elisa, a mute cleaner, and along with Zelda (Octavia Spencer), are tasked with cleaning up, circa Baltimore 1962, a government building that is used for experiments. One day a creature, which has the shape of a man’s body but looks like a hybrid of a giant lizard crossed with a salamander, is brought to the bunker-like fortress where he is experimented on and tortured, all at the hands of the evil Richard Strickland (Michael Shannon), who is in charge of the whole operation.

Of course, both Elisa and Zelda encounter the creature, but it’s Elisa who takes a liking to him. As she lives in a world where she can’t talk, and her only real friends are Zelda and her next door neighbor Giles (Richard Jenkins), she finds a kindred spirit in the creature who of course can’t talk as well. Elisa, initially frightened, grows more curious about the creature, and soon enough is sneaking in food for him to eat (eggs). But Elisa’s secret, and dangerous, visits to the creature turn more into just visits. Elisa soon starts falling in love with the creature in a sort of way to help her escape her mundane life. And she feels sorry for the creature, who is shackled up all day and night, held in a tank against his will. So Elisa risk everything to help him escape, and will an actual relationship develop between these two?

One has to suspend disbelief to buy into the storyline of this film, but it’s the acting and the lush cinematography that will lure you in. Hawkins is great, and the period detail couldn’t be any better. The creature looks very real better than any other seen in any recent film. Winner of several film awards, and nominated for a whopping 13 Academy Awards, including Best Actress and Best Director for Guillermo del Toro, who won Best Director at the BAFTA’s. ‘The Shape of Water’ is so unlike anything you’ll see in quite some time.

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