Please don't spend money on this.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

There are moments that feel comical, some horrific, and some downright inspiring but the tonal shifts hardly matter as the end results come to a film that's perfect for this time.

This is a dark and sometimes deeply uncomfortable drama

The Shape of Water is one of the cult-classic which combines a blend of classic and modern cultures. This is why Oscar love the movie apart from the premise which I guess seems simple, predictable, and ridiculous as I always see on the local television as romance crappy story. Guillermo Del Toro shows a simple blend of it with the fantasy technique that he always used in all his movies. The visual is one of the gorgeous pieces that ever existed, Sally Hawkins is incredible while doing a sign language, a mute princess. The set-up and production design are flawlessly underwhelmed when the film gets a lot of reputation at Oscar and the world. Some social issues may be fairly simple in this film but it can be used as a reference. But, this is a fairy tale that mixes adult components. In a nutshell, it's just a human being had sex with fish.

Part allegory, part spiritual sequel to the Creature from the Black Lagoon, this lovely, beautiful and *perfect* film is a deeply engaged with the social and political issues that have befallen the US since Trump announced his candidacy. It's more than a romantic fantasia about outsiders finding love. It's indictment of the monstrous evil that is fear of the other and Strickland is truly Trump's man. It's striking how much anger is boiling under the surface of this film. And how that anger makes the love story all the more tender.I have seen this film over a dozen times. I saw it once a day for each day it was in the theater I the small town where I live. Each time I see a new detail, a new simmer in deep waters of its thematic import. Red is passion. Green is the future. There's the wave on the wall. It is all around. Detail. Thought. Emotion. This is Del Toro's masterpiece and one of the very few best picture winners that Oscars got exactly right. It is not for everyone. In a lot of ways it is a very weird film, a cross between French art house cinema, a Sirk melodrama and the universal sci-fi films of the 50's. But for me it touched the very core of my being.Giles is the best gay character in Hollywood cinema.

The opening music and narrative tell you what this film is about. If you arrived late or were not paying attention don't bother with the rest of the film. You may also need to be above a certain age and most certainly be possessed of an attention span to appreciate this absolute gem. Many reviews, for some odd reason, wish to tell you the story rather than how the story is told. Performances are superb and the brilliant Doug Jones hits the spot again. It is littered with references, from the beginning with the red shoes and cinema offerings, great subtlety and colour. Did anyone else notice the way the heroine blinks at the "interrogation"? PAY ATTENTION!The director's usual mastery of using colour palette to descibe, enhance and explain proceedings (did you notice that in Pan's Labirinth I wonder?, or the film noir type shots in this?)Watch the colour as it is integral to the story.Were they really "goofs"? I think not. The dialogue moves the action around a bit from the supposed dates implied.A beautiful tale beautifully told with imagination and great skill with glorious cinematography which transcends the simple act of the tale.

STAR RATING: ***** Saturday Night **** Friday Night *** Friday Morning ** Sunday Night * Monday MorningElisa (Sally Hawkins) is a mute woman, only able to communicate through sign language. The only person who really understands her is her friend Zelda (Octavia Spencer), who works with her as a cleaner at a top secret research facility, where experiments are being carried out on the otherworldly Amphibian Man (Doug Jones.) Elisa comes to form a bond with this beautiful creature and becomes involved in a plot to break him free, setting her on a path with Richard Strickland (Michael Shannon), a ruthless senior employee at the place she works.Guillermo del Toro returns out of nowhere, writing and directing this whimsical little slice of fantasy that further showcases his talents as a filmmaker. After becoming known for action adventure fantasies, such as the Hellboy films and Pan's Labyrinth, here he delivers something with more of a beating emotional heart at its core, that seems to have an equalities agenda beating at its heart, with a lead character who uses sign language, living with a closet homosexual, and being best friends with a woman of colour, at a time when this group in society were stuck in menial, dead end jobs they had little hope of getting out of, whilst straight white men really ruled the world. In spite of the typically incredible special effects job done on the Amphibian Man, which don't forget to give him the sweetest, most endearing facial features, its the performances that drive the film, and in the lead role, Hawkins is perfectly cast evoking the right amount of empathy, vulnerability and compassion from this character, making her at times feel even more alien than the creature. By contrast, Shannon, although playing to type, is no less cold and scary as the unfeeling authoritarian determined to keep everything in his twisted version of order. If you can overlook the blatant political correctness, a tiresome and not entirely necessary subplot involving Russian espionage, and the ambiguous but no doubt unwholesome definition of what a woman having sex with some alien thing could be called (beasteality?!?), then this is a stirring and sensational piece of work that, as well as being a dazzling visual experience, perfectly challenges the social attitudes and prejudices of its early 1960s setting. ****