Director: Guillermo del Toro
Screenplay: Guillermo del Toro and Vanessa Taylor, from a story by Guillermo del Toro
Starring: Sally Hawkins, Michael Shannon, Richard Jenkins, Doug Jones, Michael Stuhlbarg, Octavia Spencer
Running Time: 123 minutes
Genre: Fantasy, romance
Baltimore, 1962: Elisa Esposito (Hawkins) is a mute janitor at a secret government laboratory. One night a new "asset" is delivered, under the supervision of sinister Colonel Richard Strickland (Shannon). The asset turns out to be an amphibious humanoid creature. As Strickland performs a series of cruel tests on the creature, Elsa secretly bonds with him, a bond which develops into a friendship and then something much more intimate. However, Strickland wants to kill the creature for experimentation, and there is also a group of Soviet spies, who want to kill the creature before the Americans can discover it's secrets.
This is a beautiful, elegant romantic fantasy. Although rooted in Baltimore in 1962, the film appears to take place in a strange, otherworld. Sally Hawkins gives a tender delicate performance as Elisa, and Doug Jones manages to make the creature into a genuine emotional character despite the layers of make-up and special effects. The true monster in the film is Michael Shannon as the sadistic Strickland, who somehow becomes more bestial as the film goes on, while the creature becomes more human. The film has a tenderness and real emotion, despite being surprisingly graphic and quite violent in places. It has a warmth to it however, and richness in the supporting characters, such as Elisa's friends, the lonely artist neighbor, Giles (Jenkins), and garrulous, unhappily married Zelda (Spencer). This is a beautiful and powerful adult fairy tale.
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