The Shape of Water (2017) d. del Toro, Guillermo (USA)
This “adult fairy tale” sees Sally Hawkins’ mute cleaning woman falling in love with an unworldly beast after it is captured in the Amazon and spirited away to a generic top-secret research facility, with scientist Michael Stuhlbarg and government thug Michael Shannon vying for proprietary rights. What follows is a Visually Stunning Effort, with all creative collaborators working overtime to deliver a heightened urban landscape of the early 1960s (we hear references to JFK, the Cold War, the Civil Rights Movement), and the inimitable Doug Jones (Hellboy) donning arguably the most elegant rubber monster suit to grace the silver screen.
