Directing: B-
Acting: B+
Writing: C-
Cinematography: B
Editing: B-
Special Effects: C+

What. Wait -- what?

Okay, some of this should not exactly come as a shock. The trailers made it pretty clear that The Shape of Water involves an intimate relationship, possibly even a romantic one, between Elisa (Sally Hawkins) and what the credits list as "Amphibian Man" (Doug Jones -- not the one that just won the senate seat in Alabama, for the record). What I wasn't prepared for was the extent, the physicality, of that intimacy. I'm having a little difficulty getting past it.

Sure, this is a fanciful and pretty dark world characteristic of director Guillermo de Toro. But Elisa, a cleaning lady in the government research facility housing this creature they consistently call "the asset," forges an unnatural bond with the thing. I could almost get past that under the right circumstances of storytelling, actually. But Elisa actually discusses this intimacy Zelda, with her best friend from work (Octavia Spencer, always a delight) -- and somehow, Zelda never says, "Elisa, you're fucking a fish!" Instead she learns how the thing's penis comes out of hiding. I'm not kidding.

Maybe I'm just being closed-minded. I'll freely admit that. It's very, very rare, but once in a blue moon, a movie everyone else seems to love comes along and I just can't get on board. The same thing happened with Pixar's Ratatoulle -- cartoon or not, I don't want to see rats, no matter how cute they are, running a restaurant kitchen. Yuck! So they ran themselves through the dishwasher. They're still rats.

And so it is with The Shape of Water -- it's still a fish-man. And an uncomfortably humanoid fish-man, at that: it's basically a man with scales and fins and webbed feet. The outfit is very form-fitting for the actor who portrays him, and I'm just not used to thinking a fish's ass isn't half bad looking.

I'm usually all for being challenged by a film, if it does it in the right way. I'm even good with being made uncomfortable, if there is good reason for it. I just can't bring myself to come up with any truly good reason for the story in The Shape of Water to be told. Sure, I could offer up reasons to see it regardless, most of all the performances -- Sally Hawkins in particular gives an excellent performance as a mute woman overcome with empathy for a mistreated creature.

Then again, perhaps you should also be warned that Elisa is weirdly horny from the beginning. She jerks off in the bathtub every morning and even sets a timer to it -- an egg timer, by the way: she also loves to eat hard boiled eggs and shares them with her beloved Amphibian Man. Lots of fertility symbolism, I suppose. This is the most fucked up Easter ever imagined.

Elisa has a lovely gay friend who lives in her building, Giles, played by Richard Jenkins -- another actor who is always a welcome presence. Maybe these actors just know something I don't, and can see some intrinsic value in this script that I can't. The Shape of Water would easily fall flat without the likes of these actors elevating the otherwise mystifying material.

"Forbidden love," a timeless trope, is one thing. In this case, all I can think of is how amphibian sex gives "slippery slope" new meaning. This isn't a boy and a girl from rival families. It's literal bestiality. The government program boss played effectively by Michael Shannon is clearly meant to be seen as the villain, but I'm kind of on his side on this one. "That thing is an affront," he says. He's right!

I'll give The Shape of Water this much: it certainly is never boring. This truly is a movie all its own. I couldn't even tell you what genre it's supposed to be -- it's set in a sort of alternate-universe fifties, full of whimsical flourishes, and treats sex between members of different species with a "love makes a family" vibe. It certainly feels like a Guillermo del Toro movie. Honestly, most fans of del Toro's, or of twisted dark fantasies, will probably love it. With what I feel are legitimate reasons, however, I'm just not feeling it.

Overall: C+