MOVIE REVIEW: Shape of Water

January 15, 2018
By: Kathy Rupert-Mathews

I saw "The Shape of Water." We had to go to Lansing because it isn?t playing around here.

I'm really glad I saw it. However, I wasn't at first. It took a few days, some thinking and a couple of podcast interviews with the director, Guillermo del Toro.

At first, I was so furious with the bad guy, Richard Strickland, played by Michael Shannon, that I disliked the movie. He dominated each scene and cast a pall over the entire film. After putting some distance between the show and myself I was able to see it as the director wanted us to see it.

It is a sci-fi movie, a modern fairytale, and a love story. Elisa and Zelda, played by Sally Hawkins and Octavia Spencer, are janitors at a top-secret research facility. Elisa is lonely but has a best friend in Zelda and Giles played by Richard Jenkins. Strickland has captured an Amphibian Man in South America and brought him to the facility where they plan on experimenting on him of course. Elisa is mute and so is the Amphibian Man so they begin to build a bond.

It is beautifully filmed. The Amphibian Man, played by Doug Jones, has a fantastic costume. The acting is great. It is R rated for nudity and some violence.

Would I recommend it? Yes. It is so very different. Just don?t get distracted by the impossibility of the story or the bad guy.

So go. Have fun. Eat popcorn.