Girls, If You Thought The Creature From The Black Lagoon Was A Hottie, Wait Till You Get A Load Of Doug Jones, As Amphibian Man, In "The Shape Of Water!!!!!!!!!!!!"

                                 The musculature, darlings!  I am telling you, you will not believe it!

                                 This was the movie David had been trying to drag me too, for weeks!  Well, it finally turned up at the Alpine, not far from us, so we had no excuse.

                                 I walked into the screening room, with my arms crossed.  I was expecting to have a nice snooze during the movie.  But I found it inexplicably absorbing.

                                 I mean, OK, it comes with a perfect pedigree Guillermo del Torro directing, Sally Hawkins,  Octavia Spencer, Richard Jenkins, and Octavia Spencer, give their acting all, but it wasn't prepared for what the film encompassed.  I had been led to expect a tale of a girl who falls in love with some creature, and there is that, but the movie is just more than fairy tale fantasy--it is a meditation on love and loneliness, on being an outsider, and especially in the conformist Fifties, where so many are trying to return us to today; well, good luck, you motherfuckers! Ain't gonna happen!  Michael Shannon is the Right Wing Demon in the piece, and he has got to stop playing these roles, or else he won't be playing anything else!

                                Still, the movie is not perfect.  Like getting acclimated to your body being in water, I had to get into the movie before I understood who was who, and what was going on.

                                For instance, I thought Elisa Espositio (Sally Hawkins) and Giles (Richard Jenkins) were father and daughter.  They are not; they happen to be good friends, living in the most artistically designed apartment structure, above a movie theater.   Which is showing "The Story Of Ruth," which this sort of parallels.  How long since you have seen that earlier movie, darlings!!!!!!!!!

                                I was at first confused what Shannon and the Right Wingers, wanted.  At first, it seemed they wanted to keep the creature alive, to study it.  Then I got the idea they wanted to send it into space, like the Russians did with a dog, which would kill it.

                                Once I realized annihilation was on the table, I was with Elisa all the way!  Especially when Dr. Hoffstetter (brilliantly played by Michael Stuhlbarg) stepped in.  I wanted lonely Elisa to have her spinster dream, and the series of water sequences done by Hawkins are visually and dramatically impressive.  Sally is not afraid to take risks here, as she proves.

                                  Richard Jenkins gives a carefully, nuanced performance, the kind I would like to see win. But the writers do him an injustice; it takes awhile for it to become clear that he is at out of work alcoholic, and when he revealed he was gay, well, girls, I was surprised!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

                                  As for Michael Shannon, well, let us say, regarding his character, the wife and kids are better off without him.  Otherwise, come five or ten years down the road, she would be filing restraining orders, and orders of protection!  As well she should!

                                   And as for Zelda Fuller, enacted in a superb performance, by Octavia Spencer--well civil rights is coming down that road, honey, so hang on!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

                                   This movie pressed so many buttons.  But because of its difficulty to establish the structure of things early on, I could not embrace this film  as much as David did.

                                     I greatly admired it.  And recommend it to all.

                                     And think about skin care, next time you take a shower, dolls!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!