Different and enjoyable love story

Rating: 8/10 (12 January 2018)

'The Shape of Water' is del Toro's 10th film, and one of his best - better than 'Pan's Labyrinth', in my books. It's an interesting tale about a mute woman Elisa (Hawkins), who works as a cleaner at a military base with her friend, Zelda (Spencer). There they find that Strickland (Shannon) has brought something strange back to the base. Since he's shown in the trailer & posters, it's not really a spoiler to say that Doug Jones plays an Abe Sapien-like creature (man, I wish they'd make 'Hellboy III'!) Elisa and "the asset" begin to connect and we're off on a peculiar journey.
The film does well to integrate the fantastic with the real world, with everything looking like the 1960's and the racism, sexism and prejudice is still on display. There's also an interesting sub-plot of the Cold War, with Russian spies - and a bit of a sad ending there, but also slyly funny. All the actors are great - Jenkins as the helpful friend/neighbour, Spencer as the chatty/funny work friend, Stuhlbarg as the scientist, Shannon as the bad guy - always excellent - and Jones and Hawkins as the silent, but super-expressive leads.
The other main stars are colour and water - everything's either a motif of green, blue or teal, and the use of water as a transition between scenes is great. The score's good and the film never seems hurried - except for one scene - but isn't too long either. There's moments of violence and comedy between the question of how does he exist? But mostly, it's a pleasant story about love and identity, with a solid ending and excellent cinematography.