Rated: 14A
Starring: Maudie (Sally Hawkins), Minny (Octavia Spencer), and two Michaels from Boardwalk Empire (Shannon and Stuhlbarg)
Plot: Mute woman meets fish man. Mute woman makes sweet sweet love with fish man.
Tanya’s Verdict: I had high hopes for this one. I’m a huge fan of Guillermo del Toro – Pan’s Labyrinth is one of my favourite movies. But I was disappointed in The Shape of Water. In typical del Toro fashion, the movie is dark and eerie – a fantasy wrapped in a gothically realistic setting. And it certainly starts off promising. Sally Hawkins is amazing – as is Richard Jenkins – and Doug Jones as fish man is grotesquely interesting. But at about the half-way point, things derailed for me and felt increasingly silly. In the end, I won’t say it was awful – just not as good as I hoped and expected. Interestingly enough, my husband who had no such expectations enjoyed it much more than I did.