Just left a pre-release screening at UCSB.
Del Toro just keeps getting better.
Sally Hawkins is completely magnetic in this role. Couldn’t take my eyes of of her— she deserves the bits of oscar buzz she is getting. Richard Jenkins also stands out in a great cast. The creature is a 10 in terms of design. Doug Jones, Micheal Shannon, Octavia Spencer are all doing good work.
I won’t give anything away but I will say that the marketing doesn’t convey the tonal range of the film. This isn’t quite as big a problem as it was for Chrimson Peak which was pretty badly mmisrepresented by trailers, but this is as much fairy tale and romance as it is cold-war creature-feature. The pacing and tone are deft and cohesive for something that dips through so many different genres. There were some unexpect amd really wonderful light moments. Even some effectively oblique moments of political comment.
It’s not perfect, there are a bits of plotting that feel a bit easy, or too convenient. They were all minor though, and I feel like I am searching for things to complain about. It’s certainly not for everyone, especially the squeamish or the square. I don’t know if it’s my favorite Del Toro but it is one of his best to date, and distinctly his own.
tl:dr; Just go see it if you can. It opens in NY & LA tomorrow, with a wider release to follow.
Submitted December 01, 2017 at 12:20PM by eyedwords http://ift.tt/2ngQk96