Movie tip

The Shape of Water

Only auteur Guillermo del Toro would take his childhood disappointment that the fish-man and the woman in the “Creature from the Black Lagoon” didn’t end up together and would transform that reaction into his own movie that’s wondrous and deeply strange, shot through with both cruelty and romanticism. Sally Hawkins plays a mute cleaning woman who falls for an aquatic creature in a secretive 1960s government facility. Are they in for trouble? Well, Michael Shannon (at his most scarily Shannon-esque) is running the place, so you can guess. Richard Jenkins, meanwhile, almost steals the show as Hawkins’ timid, closeted artist neighbor.