Guillermo Del Toro creates one of the most cinematically beautiful epics of our time.

Rating: Null/10 (19 December 2017)

Water gives life. Guillermo Del Toro's "The Shape of Water" is all about love and life. Few filmmakers create films where you sense the work of a director in every shot, and Del Toro does exactly that. Through his brilliance and creativity, Guillermo Del Toro places himself as one of the best filmmakers of our time with this masterpiece. Set during the Cold War, the mutant janitor of a research facility named Elisa (Sally Hawkins) falls in love with a test subject, which happens to be an amphibian-like creature similar in many ways to a man. With help from her friend Giles (Richard Jenkins) and Zelda (Octavia Spencer), Elisa risks everything to try and save the creature from the wicked government agents trying abusing him, specifically Richard Strickland (Michael Shannon).
Del Toro's unusual love story is simply beautiful. We get many gorgeous shots of water in many forms, symbolizing the different forms of love found throughout life. Del Toro isn't emphasizing that people-creature relationships should be socially accepted, but rather uses their relationship as a mechanism to convey the multiple complexities and layers of love and life. Del Toro crafts a truly beautiful film dedicated to the art of cinema, shining in his details and poetic signatures. Each performance is remarkable, notably the wickedness of the great Michael Shannon and the richness of Sally Hawkins mute but brilliant performance. "The Shape of Water" is not only visually beautiful due to its breathtaking cinematography, but conveys a beautiful test on life and love and how love itself takes many different shapes.