I first came across Guillermo del Toro in 1997 when I rented Mimic on Video (I didn’t see Cronos until some years later on TV). I have since seen every one of his movies in the cinema on their original release. Mimic is an enjoyable genre movie. It doesn’t do anything outstanding but it does it with a style that made del Toro a director to look out for. Four years later came the stunning ghost story The Devil’s Backbone. This was closely followed in 2002 by Blade II. A big fan of the original Blade, I was curious what a sequel would be like. With a bigger scope and a more in-depth story it is better than the first film. This is where I first saw a lot of the themes that have become the mainstay for del Toro stories; themes that were explored further in Hellboy and (2004) and his masterpiece Pan’s Labyrinth (2006). My favourite film of the year and possibly the decade. While I have enjoyed all his films that have followed, none have quite hit the highs of Pan’s Labyrinth until now! 
Its traditional to start a review, if that is what this is, with a brief synopsis. Rather than agonising over how much plot to give away in a carefully worded description, I have lifted this from IMDB “At a top secret research facility in the 1960s, a lonely janitor forms a unique relationship with an amphibious creature that is being held in captivity.” This is as much as you want to know going in, I would certainly avoid any trailers as they give the whole story away. 
The key to the brilliance of the movie is the central performance by Sally Hawkins as Elisa Esposito. The part is largely without speech, but she expresses so much without words. This isn’t achieved with a silent movie style over exaggerated performance; this is naturalistic, subtle and beautiful. Without this central performance, the romance that is at the heart of the story would not be believable, but more importantly, we as audiences would not care about it. 
The brilliance of the film goes far beyond the central plot and the main characters: Richard Jenkins plays a neighbour and friend who has his own story, with his own triumphs and failures as well as being key to the central plot. We get a glimpse of the home life of co-worker Zelda (Ocatavia Spencer). Then we have Michael Shannon’s character he is essentially the films villain, but he truly believes he is a patriot and the hero. All these things hold a mirror up to society, how we live and what we believe, not the society of its early 60’s setting, this is a movie for today, a movie for today. A time of Brexit Britain, Trumps America and tensions between the two Korean states. 
The film looks amazing. Many of the visual effects are real, in camera and not digital. The production design is stunning, not exactly German Expressionism, but certainly a couple of degrees of real world. There is so much going on and there are some truly tense scenes, but the film drifts along telling its story with pace and a truly gentle touch. The themes and metaphors are clear to see but not rammed down our throats. Del Toro trusts that his audiences with enough intelligence to make their own mind up about what they are seeing as he did with The Devil’s Backbone and Pan’s Labyrinth. This all helps make the film totally engrossing, the time absolutely flies by; I was amazed to learn it was just over two hours long, when the credits rolled I would have guessed closer to 90 minutes. 
Nominated for a well-deserved 13 Oscars. It’s hard to say how many it will win; given the other films nominated, I would probably only give it three or four: Best Achievement in Directing, Best Motion Picture of the Year, Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role for Sally Hawkins, and Best Achievement in Production Design. It is credited as a 2017 film, had it been released last year it would have topped my list of favourite films for the year.
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