Starring: Sally Hawkins, Michael Shannon, Richard Jenkins, Doug Jones

What’s it all about?
Elisa is a mute cleaner who works in an undisclosed government facility. She does her job and keeps her nose clean, chatting to her friend Zelda, unti one day she discovers a strange amphibious creature in one of the rooms that she is cleaning.

Initially Elisa’s interest in the creature is no more than curiosity, but her feelings soon grow into something greater, and against all odds the two form a close bond.

Elisa hatches a plan to steal the creature, thereby releasing from its shackles, so that she can keep it in her apartment where it will not have to be subjected to pokes and prods from the government officials. She elicits the help of her father and Zelda to do this.

Watching it with the kids…
There are a couple of scenes where things get pretty violent and bloody, and you may have to turn away from the screen if that isn’t your kind of thing. There is sex, a bunch of bad words, and full frontal nudity. So no, don’t watch this with the little ones.

Verdict…
The Shape of Water is both a very strange movie, but also a very simple one. Yes, it’s a period fantasy movie centred around a man-fish (or maybe it’s a fish-man), held captive by some shady political officials, but it’s essentially just a love story with a few bells and whistles to make it stand out from the crowd. And it does stand out. It starts off slowly, but by the time the credits rolled it had made me a believer, and I wanted them to live happily ever after too.

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