The Shape of Water

Movie Review #7831 THE SHAPE OF WATER.

Apt title for a Swiss Army knife of a movie that hovers across sci-fi, horror, musical, love story, comedy, porn flick and spy thriller genres taking each one by the throat and giving it a damn good shake.

Sally Hawkins is the mute Eliza working as a cleaner in an early 60s government research facility when she strikes a repose with the latest researchee - a throwback from the creature from the black lagoon. Octavia Spencer is her workmate & eventual cohort as they, along with her gay neighbour and a humanitarian scientist, who turns out to be not quite what he seems, endeavour to stay one step ahead of the egotistical head honcho played nicely by very easy-to-dislike bad guy Michael Shannon.

I'm told there's one small DNA strand difference between a human and a chimpanzee and one small tweak in the DNA of this movie changes it from sci-fi thriller to cornball spoof, from love story to political commentary plus we're left at the end with a did she/didn't she puzzler.

Nonetheless an extremely well crafted film that could have easily lost its way through all its ducking and diving across boundaries yet it manages to stay on a relatively even keel throughout, delivering a highly entertaining couple of hours.

Overall 9/10.