The Shape of Water (15)
★★★★

ONE-OF-A-KIND director Guillermo del Toro (Pan’s Labyrinth, Hellboy) invites us to dive deep into this singular fantasy-meets-reality world set in the 1960s, primarily at a scientific research facility where a shadowy organisation is conducting all manner of experiments as part of a Cold War power struggle.

Our central figure is Elisa (Sally Hawkins), a young mute woman who lives a simple life working as a cleaner at the facility and with her friend Zelda (Octavia Spencer), returning home every night to her humble apartment above a cinema and next door to eccentric artist neighbour Giles (Richard Jenkins).

During one of her rounds she can’t help but notice the facility’s newest arrival: a truly unique humanoid sea creature referred to as the Amphibian Man (regular del Toro collaborator Doug Jones), whom the scientists, including the sympathetic Dr Hoffstetler (Michael Stuhlbarg), are interested in because of his ability to breathe underwater.

As Elisa develops a strong and loving bond with the creature, she hatches a plan to rescue him from the clutches of his chief captor, the cruel Colonel Strickland (Michael Shannon).

You can feel the love that’s gone into every frame of this enchantingly strange romantic fantasy all about vulnerable outsiders who find one another; a teal-coloured passion project for del Toro where emotion and ideas and visual splendour swim together in harmony. He has created an achingly romantic and nostalgic grown-up fairytale that swoons for a time gone by, or one that never was but could have been, full of hope against danger and compassion in the face of misunderstanding.

The craftsmanship of the film – Dan Laustsen’s beautiful cinematography, Alexandre Desplat’s dream-like score – pays respectful homage to cinema and legends of old, but del Toro moulds it entirely to his own style and in a way that keeps thematic and emotional impact front and centre.

The Amphibian Man might appear as the otherworldly predator, with his scaly body and intimidating hiss, but it’s Shannon who is the monster in this tale, lacking the heart that Hawkins’s “princess without voice” exudes from her very core.

“The way he looks at me,” she passionately signs to explain why she cares so much about the Amphibian Man, “he doesn’t know what I lack”.

Exemplified in Hawkins’s heart-breaking central performance, del Toro has conjured a resplendent and magical trip of a movie that works as a lovingly crafted Valentine to the idea of longing for and holding on to true connection and understanding in a murky world where that sort of empathy might seem elusive.