Finally. It seemed like I’d been waiting forever for this movie to come to my home state. This past weekend, it did.
What can I say about this film that you haven’t already heard? Can I say that it was worth the wait? It was. Can I say that all the accolades it has received are well deserved, with the film even going so far as to impress the commoner critics to the extent that it is nominated for Best Picture at the Academy awards? They are well deserved. I could write a novel-length piece dissecting the symbolism in the picture. I could praise every nuance, making an ultimately insufficient attempt to depict with words what Writer/Director Guillermo Del Toro achieves via the artform of cinema. I could grouse about leading man Doug Jones (who has plenty of vampire cred, having portrayed one of the Ancients in THE STRAIN and soon to be appearing as NOSFERATU) not getting a nomination for Best Actor, when he deserves it just as much as his costar Sally Hawkins and Del Toro, too, because he had to humanize the creature while performing under heavy make-up and without speaking, and did so masterfully. I could ruminate on the origin of the film, discussing how Guillermo Del Toro saw THE CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON when he was a child and wanted the monster to get the girl, so he created that very movie. I could marvel at the fact that a genre effort is receiving such undiluted praise from people who normally turn up their noses at such fare, and maybe even gloat a little that this movie is so good it forced those people to give it their admiration when they would’ve preferred to deride it.
I could say all those things and more, but my words would fall short. Nothing I can say would do justice to this movie. It is, without risk of exaggeration, a miracle, and nothing less. Experience this movie on the big screen if you get the chance, and make the chance if you possibly can. It is a once-in-a-lifetime occurrence.