Oscars post-mortem, plus Veronica: Your Week In Film (March 5-11)

Actually, Sally, The Shape Of Water won four Oscars...

Due to post-Oscars fatigue and the fact I have deadlines looming elsewhere, it's a shorter column this time. Things should return to normal next week with a bit of luck...

The 90th Academy Awards – your esteemed winners...
Best Picture: The Shape Of Water
Best Director: Guillermo Del Toro (The Shape Of Water)
Best Actress: Frances McDormand (Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri)
Best Actor: Gary Oldman (Darkest Hour)
Best Supporting Actress: Allison Janney (I, Tonya)
Best Supporting Actor: Sam Rockwell (Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri)
Best Original Screenplay: Jordan Peele (Get Out)
Best Adapted Screenplay: James Ivory (Call Me By Your Name)
Best Score: Alexandre Desplat (The Shape Of Water)
Best Song: "Remember Me" (Coco)
Best Cinematography: Roger Deakins (Blade Runner 2049)
Best Visual Effects: Blade Runner 2049
Best Editing: Dunkirk
Best Animated Film: Coco
Best Documentary: Icarus
Best Foreign-Language Film: A Fantastic Woman
Best Production Design: The Shape Of Water
Best Sound Mixing: Dunkirk
Best Sound Editing: Dunkirk
Best Costume Design: Phantom Thread
Best Make-up And Hair: Darkest Hour
Best Documentary Short: Heaven Is A Traffic Jam On The 405
Best Live Action Short: The Silent Child
Best Animated Short: Dear Basketball

And 11 takeaways...

1. In the end, it was all rather predictable. No shocks, no surprises. For once, it looks like the tipsters and pundits called it right.
2. Despite my antipathy for Three Billboards, ultimately I was rather glad Frances McDormand won Best Actress. Her acceptance speech was extraordinary – "I'm hyperventilating a little bit, so if I fall over, pick me up, because I've got some things to say."
3. The Shape Of Water isn't Guillermo Del Toro's best film and it really isn't in the same league as fellow Best Picture nominee Get Out. But its simple, hopeful message of inclusion clearly chimed with the Academy in these troubled times. It's also the first sci-fi film to take home the top prize.

4. On the subject of Del Toro, he becomes the fourth Mexican to win the Best Director award in five years, following Alfonso Cuarón (Gravity) and Alejandro Gonzalez Iñárritu (Birdman and The Revenant).
5. British cinematographer Roger Deakins finally won his first Oscar after 13 previous nominations (for Blade Runner 2049). Some of the movies he didn't win for? The Shawshank Redemption, No Country For Old Men, and Skyfall.
6. Quote of the night? Get Out's Jordan Peele, after triumphing in the Original Screenplay category (the first black person ever to do so), tweeted: "I just won an Oscar. WTF?!?"
7. It seemed rather appropriate that Netflix's Icarus – a film about doping in sport – should win in the Best Documentary category on the very same night Team Sky and Sir Bradley Wiggins were hauled over the coals for "unethical behaviour" in a new report.

8. Two former members of the Hollyoaks cast are now Oscar winners. Yes, really. The Silent Child – which won for Best Live-Action Short – was written by and starred Rachel Shenton (Mitzeee Minniver in the Channel 4 soap) and was directed by Chris Overton (Hollyoaks' cage-fighter Liam McAllister). 9. That's three nominations in the Visual Effects category for the Planet Of The Apes prequel movies now, complete with Andy Serkis's stop-motion acting magic... and not a single win.
10. Despite all the talk of "inclusion" and "diversity", CNN's Gene Seymour attempted to inject a little reality into the back-slapping. In an article entitled, "Oscar's More Woke – But Winners Still So White", he wrote: "To be clear: things haven't changed THAT dramatically yet. We're still waiting for the first African-American best director – and, for that matter, the second woman best director. The fact is, most of the award winners remained white."
11. I wonder if Harvey Weinstein watched the ceremony?

Just the one review this week...

The first thing to say about Veronica (Netflix) WWW is that, contrary to certain reports last week, it really isn't the scariest film ever made. However, this Spanish horror – written and directed by Paco Plaza, who gave us the [Rec] trilogy – is definitely a creepy cut above most modern chillers.

The story is simple enough. Set in Madrid during the early 1990s, it sees the 15-year-old titular character (Sandra Escacena) holding a séance with a couple of school friends, hoping to contact her late father. Unfortunately, as per usual, meddling with supernatural forces turns out to be a very bad idea, and it isn't long before a sinister creature from the "other side" is menacing Veronica and her cute brood of young siblings.

A good deal of the film's success is down to its setting – a cramped, narrow apartment with plenty of nooks, crannies and small rooms that are ideal for all manner of jump-scares and fake-outs. These are just decoration, though, and what Plaza is more interested in is building tension and unease, something he does quite masterfully. There's a palpable claustrophobia to many of the spookiest scenes here, like everything is happening right next to you and all around you. He's got a good eye for a visual flourish too and his film is peppered with them, one scene involving something as seemingly innocuous as some mattresses actually gave me goose-bumps.

Mirrors and other reflective surfaces are a long-standing horror-movie staple but Plaza makes excellent use of them too, dropping hints as to his creature's true nature and, in one superbly delivered moment during a manic climax, dropkicking your heart right into your mouth with a single, spine-tingling image. He even finds room for a bit of fun – the blind nun nicknamed "Sister Death" is so gloriously over the top she could have stepped right out of The Omen, and I loved the fact Veronica gets all her information about the arcane not from some cursed, ancient Necronomicon, but from a few tatty issues of an occult part-works collection. Only the over-familiarity of its premise – teen summons monster, monster comes after her – prevents Veronica getting top marks.

Running scared: Veronica has summoned something very nasty indeed

Also out this week

• Luca Guadagnino's Best Picture nominee Call Me By Your Name (DVD, Blu-ray and VOD) WW is a gorgeous-looking love story, starring Armie Hammer and Timothée Chalamet. I appreciated the sumptuous visuals, and James Ivory's Oscar-winning screenplay certainly has its moments, but I struggled to care for either of the main characters.

• The Killing Of A Sacred Deer (DVD, Blu-ray and VOD) WW convinced me co-writer/director Yorgos Lanthimos peaked with Dogtooth and the first half of The Lobster. Discomfiting and original at times, profoundly silly and irritating at others.

• For reasons I will never understand The Florida Project (VOD) WWWW failed to pick up a Best Picture nod, despite being a substantially better film than almost everything else nominated. Sean Baker's hilarious, heart-breaking tale of a struggling young mother and her precocious daughter is a must-see.

• On Body And Soul WWWW may not have won the Foreign-Language Oscar for which it was nominated, but is well worth checking out nonetheless. To celebrate its nomination, Mubi UK have added Ildikó Enyedi's offbeat romance to their catalogue for the next month. You can read my longer take on the film here.
  

What I will be watching this week: Due to last week's snow madness, I still haven't got round to Red Sparrow.

This week's Top 10 UK DVDs and Blu-rays (movies only)
1. Thor: Ragnarok*
2. Jigsaw
3. The Death Of Stalin*
4. Goodbye Christopher Robin
5. Geostorm
6. Blade Runner 2049*
7. Kingsman: The Golden Circle
8. Victoria And Abdul
9. Thor/Thor: The Dark World/Thor: Ragnarok
10. Breathe
* = Recommended

Everyone is talking about the Oscars, why should this blog be any different?

Wrong arm of the law: Rockwell and McDormand face off in Three Billboards

This year's Academy Awards ceremony takes place tomorrow (Sunday, March 4), so I thought it might be fun to take a look at which movies, actors and directors are being tipped to pick up the Oscars. Rather than rely only on my own prejudices and predictions, I've also taken a look at what people who know what they are talking about reckon, and have presented the results below. There's nothing scientific about it, the 10 websites/publications I chose to feature here were randomly selected, but paint an interesting picture of where the smart money in each category is going. Featuring every one of the Oscars' 24 different categories would take all day, so I've chosen just 13 to talk about (not all of our tipsters made predictions in every category). Before diving in, you can check out all this year's nominees here.

Best Picture
Variety: Get Out
EW.com: The Shape Of Water
USA Today: Three Billboards
Vanity Fair: Get Out
Hollywood Reporter: The Shape Of Water
Den Of Geek: The Shape Of Water
Deadline: The Shape Of Water
New York Times: The Shape Of Water
Daily Telegraph: Get Out
The Playlist: The Shape Of Water

Of the "big six" categories, this is the only one that our tipsters can't seem to agree upon. It looks like a three-way tussle between Get Out, The Shape Of Water and Three Billboards, with Guillermo Del Toro's Cold War fairytale having the edge. The fact Martin McDonagh didn't pick up a Best Director nomination is not a good sign for Three Billboards' chances – only four films in Oscars history have won Best Picture without an accompanying Best Director nod. The last time it happened was in 2013, when the mediocre Argo somehow took the top prize, while helmer Ben Affleck was left out in the cold. On the other hand, the Academy are not exactly the biggest fans of sci-fi/fantasy or horror, which seems to count against Get Out and Shape. I reckon Del Toro's film might just take it, although it wouldn't surprise me if Three Billboards repeated its success from the Baftas and Golden Globes. A win for Shape, Lady Bird, Phantom Thread or would make me most happy.

Gone fishing: Sally Hawkins stars in Guillermo Del Toro's The Shape Of Water

Best Director
Variety: Guillermo Del Toro (The Shape Of Water)
EW.com: Guillermo Del Toro (The Shape Of Water)
USA Today: Guillermo Del Toro (The Shape Of Water)
Vanity Fair: Guillermo Del Toro (The Shape Of Water)
Hollywood Reporter: Guillermo Del Toro (The Shape Of Water)
Den Of Geek: Greta Gerwig (Lady Bird)
Deadline: Guillermo Del Toro (The Shape Of Water)
New York Times: Guillermo Del Toro (The Shape Of Water)
Daily Telegraph: Guillermo Del Toro (The Shape Of Water)
The Playlist: Guillermo Del Toro (The Shape Of Water)

Bless Den Of Geek for trying to make this category's potential outcome a little more interesting, but our other tipsters all seem to think there's only one horse in the race. The Shape Of Water isn't perfect, nor is it even Del Toro's best film, but he looks a shoo-in. As the New York Times pointed out, a Del Toro victory would mark the fourth time in five years a Mexican has won the Best Director Oscar. This is a very strong category and I'd be delighted whoever won.

Drive angry: Ronan and Metcalf feud in Greta Gerwig's Lady Bird

Best Actress

Variety: Frances McDormand (Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri)
EW.com: Frances McDormand (Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri)
USA Today: Frances McDormand (Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri)
Vanity Fair: Frances McDormand (Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri)
Hollywood Reporter: Frances McDormand (Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri)
Den Of Geek: Frances McDormand (Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri)
Deadline: Frances McDormand (Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri)
New York Times: Frances McDormand (Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri)
Daily Telegraph: Frances McDormand (Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri)
The Playlist: Frances McDormand (Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri)

One thing I think we can all agree upon is that The Shape Of Water's Sally Hawkins hasn't got a prayer here. In the year of #MeToo and #Time'sUp, there's no way the Academy is going to give its Best Actress gong to someone playing a mute woman. Thing is, I'm not sure McDormand should be carrying off the award either. Three Billboards' grieving mother Mildred Hayes might seem fearless and righteous but, once you recover from the initial shock of her behaviour, you realise she's incredibly one-note. Angry and mean, angry and mean, rinse and repeat. McDormand couldn't turn in a mediocre performance if her life depended on it and she rises impressively to the challenge of her thinly-written role, but, if we're discounting Hawkins, there's one place and one place only this award should be going. Saoirse Ronan's performance in Lady Bird turns what would be a very good coming-of-age movie into a great one.

Life during wartime: Kristin Scott Thomas and Gary Oldman star in Darkest Hour

Best Actor

Variety: Gary Oldman (Darkest Hour)
EW.com: Gary Oldman (Darkest Hour)
USA Today: Gary Oldman (Darkest Hour)
Vanity Fair: Gary Oldman (Darkest Hour)
Hollywood Reporter: Gary Oldman (Darkest Hour)
Den Of Geek: Gary Oldman (Darkest Hour)
Deadline: Gary Oldman (Darkest Hour)
New York Times: Gary Oldman (Darkest Hour)
Daily Telegraph: Gary Oldman (Darkest Hour)
The Playlist: Gary Oldman (Darkest Hour)

Gary Oldman it is then. Helped by some fine prosthetic work, he is terrific as Winston Churchill, but I have a preference for actors who create their characters from scratch, rather than turning in impersonations, however impressive and eye-catching they might be. I shall be rooting for Daniel Day-Lewis, and not just because his turn as dressmaker Reynolds Woodcock in Paul Thomas Anderson's sublime Phantom Thread supposedly marks his acting swansong. His character is a difficult and complicated man, and Day-Lewis captures every infuriating nuance of him. It is the best performance in this category by a considerable margin, and Day-Lewis fully deserves another Oscar to go with the three he has won already.

Bird is the word: Allison Janney as Lavona Golden in I, Tonya

Best Supporting Actress

Variety: Allison Janney (I, Tonya)

EW.com: Allison Janney (I, Tonya)

USA Today: Allison Janney (I, Tonya)

Vanity Fair: Allison Janney (I, Tonya)

Hollywood Reporter: Allison Janney (I, Tonya)

Den Of Geek: Laurie Metcalf (Lady Bird)

Deadline: Allison Janney (I, Tonya)

New York Times: Allison Janney (I, Tonya)
Daily Telegraph: Allison Janney (I, Tonya)
The Playlist: Allison Janney (I, Tonya)

Another category in which the victor seems nailed on, with Den Of Geek's alternative suggestion one surely born of hope rather than expectation. Allison Janney is a terrific actress with a glittering CV but, like Frances McDormand in Three Billboards, her character in I, Tonya – disgraced ice-skater Tonya Harding's mother, Lavona – is extraordinarily one note. She's a pantomime villain in a cartoonish film and Lesley Manville (Phantom Thread) and Laurie Metcalf (Lady Bird), for their far subtler work, would both be far more deserving victors.

Maniac cop: Harrelson tries to keep Rockwell out of trouble in Three Billboards

Best Supporting Actor
Variety: Sam Rockwell (Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri)
EW.com: Sam Rockwell (Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri)
USA Today: Sam Rockwell (Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri)
Vanity Fair: Sam Rockwell (Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri)
Hollywood Reporter: Sam Rockwell (Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri)
Den Of Geek: Sam Rockwell (Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri)
Deadline: Sam Rockwell (Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri)
New York Times: Sam Rockwell (Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri)
Daily Telegraph: Sam Rockwell (Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri)
The Playlist: Sam Rockwell (Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri)

After winning a Golden Globe, a Screen Actors Guild Award, and a Bafta, it would be a shock of seismic proportions if Sam Rockwell didn't clean up here too. As you may have gathered, I'm not a big fan of Three Billboards, so find it impossible to share the enthusiasm for either the film or his performance in it. I didn't believe in Rockwell's character – racist cop Jason Dixon – for a single second, least of all his "redemption" of sorts towards the end. Woody Harrelson is better in the same film, while Christopher Plummer surely deserves some sort of medal for stepping into Kevin Spacey's shoes at very short notice to portray John Paul Getty so vividly in All The Money In The World. Personally, though, I'd like to see Willem Dafoe win for his warm-but-increasingly-exasperated turn as motel manager Bobby, in The Florida Project, a wonderful film that has been all but ignored by the Academy. 

Dear white people: Get Out is in the running for the Best Picture Oscar

Best Original Screenplay
Variety: Jordan Peele (Get Out)
EW.com: Martin McDonagh (Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri)
Vanity Fair: Jordan Peele (Get Out)
Hollywood Reporter: Jordan Peele (Get Out)
Den Of Geek: Guillermo Del Toro and Vanessa Taylor (The Shape Of Water)
Deadline: Jordan Peele (Get Out)
New York Times: Jordan Peele (Get Out)
The Playlist: Jordan Peele (Get Out)

As much as I adore Lady Bird, if Get Out doesn't win here there should be some sort of lengthy and far-reaching public inquiry. Jordan Peele's script manages to mix comedy, drama, horror and biting social satire to extraordinary effect. Some reports have suggested older members of the Academy have refused to even watch Get Out because they don't consider it an "Oscar film". These are probably the same people who voted for Argo...

Apes of wrath: Andy Serkis and Co are back for the prequel trilogy's climax 

Best Visual Effects
Variety: War For The Planet Of The Apes
Vanity Fair: War For The Planet Of The Apes
Hollywood Reporter: Blade Runner 2049
Den Of Geek: War For The Planet Of The Apes
Deadline: War For The Planet Of The Apes
The Playlist: War For The Planet Of The Apes

The final part of the Planet Of The Apes prequel trilogy would be a worthy winner here, with Andy Serkis and his motion-capture acting troupe once again knocking it out of the park. Blade Runner 2049 boasted some superb visuals, but was surely torpedoed by that one scene towards the end featuring a returning character from the original film. It looked every bit as convincing as the Grand Moff Tarkin CG creation did in Rogue One. So, not very then.

Orange crush: Will it be 14th time lucky for Blade Runner 2049's Deakins?

Best Cinematography

Variety: Roger Deakins (Blade Runner 2049)
Vanity Fair: Roger Deakins (Blade Runner 2049)
Hollywood Reporter: Roger Deakins (Blade Runner 2049)
Den Of Geek: Dan Laustsen (The Shape Of Water)
Deadline: Roger Deakins (Blade Runner 2049)
The Playlist: Roger Deakins (Blade Runner 2049)

After 13 previous nominations, his first for The Shawshank Redemption back in 1994, this is surely the year when Roger Deakins finally breaks his Oscars duck. Blade Runner 2049 is a deeply flawed film, its merits almost entirely down to Deakins' DP work. The astonishing sequence set in what used to be Las Vegas, with the former casino capital swathed in bright orange fog, is the stuff of pure cinema. Could anything stop him? Indeed. As Variety points out, it’s rare for the cinematography prize to go to a film that isn't nominated for Best Picture. Plus, his rivals – which include Mudbound's Rachel Morrison, the first woman ever to be nominated in this category – would hardly be undeserving winners either. I'll be keeping my fingers crossed though.

Wonder Woman: Daniela Vega shines in Sebastián Lelio's film

Best Foreign-Language Film

Variety: A Fantastic Woman
Vanity Fair: A Fantastic Woman
Hollywood Reporter: The Insult
Deadline: The Insult
New York Times: A Fantastic Woman
The Playlist: A Fantastic Woman

There's a split here between Chile's A Fantastic Woman (directed by Sebastián Lelio) and Lebanon's The Insult (helmed by Ziad Doueiri). This is a strange one for me as I'm yet to see the latter film (it doesn't seem to have a UK release date yet). And while I enjoyed A Fantastic Woman and it would be a worthy winner, I'll be cheering for off-beat romance On Body And Soul (from Hungary) and excoriating missing-child drama Loveless (from Russia). The Square, last year's winner of the Palme d'Or at Cannes, is also nominated, but didn't deserve that award and doesn't deserve to triumph here either. (Oh, and BPM's omission from the final shortlist looks even sillier now, after Robin Campillo's film bagged six awards at the Césars).

Summer nights: Call Me By Your Name was one of 2017's most passionate love stories 

Best Adapted Screenplay

Variety: James Ivory (Call Me By Your Name)
EW.com: James Ivory (Call Me By Your Name)
Vanity Fair: James Ivory (Call Me By Your Name)
Hollywood Reporter: James Ivory (Call Me By Your Name)

Den Of Geek: James Ivory (Call Me By Your Name)
Deadline: James Ivory (Call Me By Your Name)
New York Times: James Ivory (Call Me By Your Name)
The Playlist: James Ivory (Call Me By Your Name)

I'm surprised Call Me By Your Name is seen as such a dead cert here because it's the film's languid pace, winning performances and sumptuous camerawork that are its selling points, rather than any sparkling dialogue or innovative storytelling. Still, no one would begrudge James Ivory – who adapted André Aciman's novel for the big screen – a first Academy Award at the age of 89, after being nominated on three previous occasions as Best Director. However, for my money, this award should be going to Dee Rees' Mudbound, which makes good use of multiple narrators to tell an ambitious tale of two families – one white, one black – in the American South, post-World War II. In two hours and change, Rees' adaptation of the Virgil Williams novel covers an awful lot of ground and does so powerfully, economically and poetically.

What not to wear: Another Woodcock "classic" is unveiled in Phantom Thread

Best Costume Design

Variety: Mark Bridges (Phantom Thread)
Vanity Fair: Mark Bridges (Phantom Thread)
Hollywood Reporter: Mark Bridges (Phantom Thread)
Den Of Geek: Jacqueline Durran (Darkest Hour)
Deadline: Mark Bridges (Phantom Thread)
The Playlist: Mark Bridges (Phantom Thread)

One of Phantom Thread's best jokes is that Reynolds Woodcock's dresses are all fairly horrible and the rich, indolent fools who troop through his palatial London fashion house have terrible taste. The idea Paul Thomas Anderson's film should therefore find itself nominated in this category is something I suspect the director finds genuinely amusing (not to mention ironic). The way things are shaping up, it's likely to be the only Oscar the film takes home, so I'm nevertheless hoping for a win.

The great escape: Nolan's Dunkirk expertly recreated Operation Dynamo

Best Original Score
Variety: Alexandre Desplat (The Shape Of Water)
Vanity Fair: Alexandre Desplat (The Shape Of Water)
Hollywood Reporter: Alexandre Desplat (The Shape Of Water)
Den Of Geek: Alexandre Desplat (The Shape Of Water)
Deadline: Alexandre Desplat (The Shape Of Water)
The Playlist: Alexandre Desplat (The Shape Of Water)

The Shape Of Water is again the frontrunner here, but I hope this is one category where it doesn't emerge victorious. Alexandre Desplat's score is perfectly lovely, fitting both the film's romantic and fairytale themes, but it simply isn't in the same league as at least two of the other nominees. Hans Zimmer's score for Dunkirk is an exercise in tension. Start listening to it and I guarantee that, within five minutes, you'll be biting your nails, tapping your foot and feeling decidedly on edge. Of all five scores nominated in this category, it is the one that fits the film's visual and storytelling elements most perfectly. Jonny Greenwood's score for Phantom Thread is far more decorative, a sumptuous, lavish creation recorded with a 60-piece orchestra. Simply put, it's beautiful. Zimmer or Greenwood would be very worthy winners here.

The 90th Academy Awards, hosted by Jimmy Kimmel, will be shown live in the UK on Sky Cinema Oscars tomorrow night (Sunday, March 4). Red carpet coverage commences at midnight (so, strictly speaking, that's Monday morning), with the ceremony itself kicking off an hour later at 1am.

London Film Festival Despatch #3: The Shape Of Water, Downsizing, and Happy End

Chain reaction: The Shape Of Water is an unusual love story

Ratings guide:  WWWW - Wonderful  WWW - Worthwhile  WW - Watchable  W - Woeful

Watching Michael Shannon in The Shape Of Water WWWW makes you realise just how rare truly great screen villains have become. Shannon (Midnight Special) plays Strickland, the sadistic, candy-crunching, Bible-quoting head of a top-secret military research facility, who has captured an amphibious creature (Doug Jones) not entirely dissimilar to Hellboy's Abe Sapien or The Creature From The Black Lagoon. He tortures the poor beast with an electrified cattleprod, not because it holds information he requires or poses any particular threat, but rather because he enjoys inflicting pain upon something he considers an abomination. Strickland is a bastard's bastard, an unpleasant douchebag of epic proportions, and a real contrast to the parade of insipid CG-enhanced super-baddies we see trundled out in ever-greater numbers in blockbusters of all stripes. Finally, a villain you can love to hate again. The fact he'd be a shoo-in for a seat in Trump's cabinet is just a bonus.

Impressively, Shannon isn't the best thing about Guillermo Del Toro's early-'60s-set follow-up to the pretty but vacuous Crimson Peak. That honour belongs to Sally Hawkins, an actress who is truly at the height of her powers, as evidenced this year both here and in the underrated Maudie. Her character Elisa is a lonely mute, who works as a cleaner at the military facility where Strickland is holding what he refers to as "The Asset". Hawkins never speaks a word but the expressiveness of her face and body tells you everything you need to know. Sneaking into the room where the creature is kept, she makes contact, and they bond over hard-boiled eggs and big-band music, communicating via sign language. When Strickland announces the beast is to be vivisected, Elisa, plus neighbour Giles (Richard Jenkins), work colleague Zelda (Octavia Spencer), and Robert (Michael Stuhlbarg), a Russian spy posing as a US scientist, resolve to help him escape. 

In many ways, The Shape Of Water is peak Del Toro, covering ground we've seen him tackle before, both stylistically and in terms of its subject matter. The usual eye-popping visuals and fairytale tone are both present and accounted for, as is a powerful sense of time and place, and the way he uses the fantastical as a metaphor to talk about real people and the imperfect world they inhabit. Like Pan's Labyrinth (2006) before it, this is a creature feature for grown-ups. The difference this time, though, is that Shape feels more urgently contemporary than his previous work. It might be set in the 1960s but this is a plea for tolerance and kindness in the here and now. It would be easy to view Elisa as a saintly figure but she isn't really - she's only doing what anyone with an ounce of decency should do: stand up to bullies, push back against hatred and intolerance, defend the rights of those unable to defend themselves. I really don't need to draw you a diagram of who and what the director is taking aim at here.

Is it perfect? No. There are plot holes (security at the facility is lax to the point of total implausibility), while Spencer is lumbered with the same "sassy big sister" role she seems to play in everything (will someone hurry up and cast her as a serial killer?). And there's one sequence when the director takes the fairytale whimsy just a little too far. These are tiny niggles, though, when set alongside everything Del Toro's spectacular, emotional film gets perfectly right. Not just his most impressive work since Pan's but perhaps second only to it on a list of his best films to date.

Making a splash: Del Toro is finally back to his best

Half an hour into sci-fi comedy Downsizing WWW, you're confident of where its heading. Norwegian scientists have found a way to shrink people to only a few inches in height and, in a bid to lessen the impact of overpopulation and increasingly scarce resources, the procedure has been rolled out to anyone who can afford it. Enter Matt Damon and Kristin Wiig, a typical middle-class couple, who decide to go through the process so they can enjoy the lifestyle they've always wanted. They plan to move to a miniaturised community, where their savings and assets mean they have enough to live on for the rest of their tiny lives. But then, around a quarter of the way in, Alexander Payne's film spins off at a tangent, turning, in just a few scenes, from a lighthearted comedy, built on smartly-delivered sight gags and impressive CGI, to an altogether darker satire. All is far from well in this tiny would-be panacea, with Payne (Nebraska) taking aim at consumerism, exploitation, the misuse of technology, and the seeming inevitability of climate-based disaster. Some of the points the film strives to make are a little ham-fisted and there are times it is easy to forget Damon and Co aren't all just living in a regular-sized world. But, for the most part, it's engaging, entertaining and nicely told, with the great Christoph Waltz and Inherent Vice's Hon Chau stealing the show in meaty supporting roles.

Small wonder: Alexander Payne returns with Downsizing

If the humour in Michael Haneke's Happy End WWW were any blacker, they'd send miners underground to dig it up to burn as fuel. Set in Calais, it focuses on various members of the Laurent family, a wealthy but fractious bunch, which includes suicidal patriarch Georges (Jean-Louis Trintignant), businesswoman Anne (Isabelle Huppert), her philandering brother Thomas (Mathieu Kassovitz), and disturbed son, Pierre (Franz Rogowski). When her mother is hospitalised, the group is joined by young Eve (Fantine Harduin), Thomas's daughter from a previous marriage, who may well be the most screwed up of the lot of them. Haneke lays out their trials and tribulations in a rather soapy way, but seems to have little empathy with these people, their bourgeois indulgences or self-inflicted woes. The fact the Amour director sets his film in Calais is very deliberate, as its port is the gathering place for many hundreds of asylum seekers desperate to make the crossing from France into the UK. What Haneke is keen to focus on is the obliviousness of France's moneyed classes to anyone's plight but their own. As a result, immigrants are practically invisible and silent in this film - but that speaks volumes about what he's trying to say. We glimpse them just twice - the second time towards the end as a sublime bit of farce unfolds at a glitzy wedding reception. Haneke's films are often quite chilly, alienating affairs (I'm thinking specifically of The Piano Teacher and Cache). However, the bleak but quite broad humour he brings to bear here makes Happy End one of his most accessible pieces of work. Critics have been sniffy, saying the director is going over ground he has covered before, but that's entirely forgivable when the results are this rewarding. 

F is for family: The Laurents battle their demons in Happy End

Finally, I want to mention a few movies I've reviewed for Film Inquiry (here and here) but that are simply too good not to devote some space to on this blog as well. Chief among them is You Were Never Really Here WWWW, Lynne Ramsay's punishing adaptation of Jonathan Ames's short story of the same name. mother! director Darren Aronofsky recently spoke about an idea he'd had for a Batman film and how he'd wanted Joaquin Phoenix to play the Dark Knight. That movie never happened but if Phoenix's beyond-intense performance here is anything to go by, he'd have been perfect for the role. The Inherent Vice actor is Joe, a Gulf War veteran turned hired muscle, who specialises in rescuing underage girls from sex traffickers. Armed only with a hardware-store hammer, he brutalises anyone who gets in his way, while wrestling with the mental and emotional consequences of a past and present steeped in such violence. Plot and action aren't what's important here, though, as director Ramsay (We Need To Talk About Kevin) focuses more on Joe's damaged psyche than anything else. It reminded me of Martin Scorsese's Taxi Driver and I'm not sure there's any higher recommendation than that.

Hammer time: Joaquin Phoenix impresses as a disturbed Gulf War vet

Almost as essential is Norwegian director Joachim Trier's Thelma WWWW, a supernatural coming-of-age story with shades of Carrie. It sees the titular character, played by Eili Harboe, leaving her devoutly religious parents for university in Oslo, where she meets and falls in love with Anja (Kaya Wilkins). But the onset of a series of debilitating seizures threatens to end Thelma's new life of freedom, especially when they lead her to manifest strange and terrifying psychic powers. This is no mere super-powered CG fest, as Trier (Louder Than Bombs) focuses as much on Thelma's angst and awkwardness at growing up and coming out as he does on her burgeoning - and possibly malign - abilities. Last but certainly not least is Claire Denis's bleak romantic comedy, Let The Sun Shine In WWW, which features a sterling return to form from Juliette Binoche as a lovelorn Parisian artist. She has a string of suitors - including an awful banker and pretentious actor - and cries herself to sleep every night in frustration and torment at her inability to land someone truly special. Denis seems to take issue with the whole notion of romantic love and the idea of "finding the one", but such gratifying cynicism never undermines the empathy you feel for Binoche and her seemingly naïve, not to mention endless, quest.

What a Carrie on: Thelma develops terrifying psychic powers

My Top 10 new films of the festival...

1. 120 BPM (Beats Per Minute)

2. The Shape Of Water

3. You Were Never Really Here

4. Mudbound

5. Thelma

6. Brigsby Bear

7. Happy End

8. Redoubtable

9. Let The Sun Shine In

10. Good Time