The Shape of Water (2017)

The Shape of Water is a 2017 American romantic supernatural film directed by Guillermo del Toro and written by del Toro and Vanessa Taylor.^[4] It stars Sally Hawkins, Michael Shannon, Richard Jenkins, Doug Jones, Michael Stuhlbarg, and Octavia Spencer. Set in Baltimore, Maryland, in 1962, the story follows a mute cleaner at a high-security government laboratory who falls in love with a captured humanoid amphibian creature. Filming took place in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, between August and November 2016.

The Shape of Water was screened as part of the main competition in the 74th Venice International Film Festival, where it premiered on August 31, 2017,^[5] and was awarded the Golden Lion for best film.^[6] It was also screened at the 2017 Toronto International Film Festival.^[7] It began a limited release in two theaters in New York City on December 1, 2017, before expanding wide on December 23, 2017, and grossed $195 million worldwide.

The Shape of Water was praised for the acting, screenplay, direction, visuals, production design, and musical score, with many calling the film Del Toro's best work since Pan's Labyrinth;^[8] the American Film Institute selected it as one of the top 10 films of the year.^[9] The Shape of Water received a number of awards and nominations, including thirteen nominations at the 90th Academy Awards, where it won for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Production Design, and Best Original Score.^[10][11] It was nominated for seven awards at the 75th Golden Globe Awards, winning for Best Director and Best Original Score,^[12] twelve at the 71st British Academy Film Awards, winning three awards including Best Director,^[13] and fourteen at the 23rd Critics' Choice Awards, winning four awards. A novelization by del Toro and Daniel Kraus was published on March 6, 2018.

Elisa Esposito, who was found abandoned as a child with wounds on her neck by the side of a river, is mute and communicates through sign language. She works as a cleaner at a secret government laboratory in Baltimore, Maryland in 1962, at the height of the Cold War. Her only friends are her closeted next-door neighbor, Giles, a middle-aged struggling advertising illustrator, and her African American co-worker Zelda Fuller. The facility receives a mysterious creature captured from a South American river by Colonel Richard Strickland, who is in charge of the project, to study it. Curious about the creature, Elisa discovers it is a humanoid amphibian. She begins visiting him in secret, and the two form a close bond.

Seeking to exploit the Amphibian Man for an American advantage in the Space Race, General Frank Hoyt is eventually persuaded by Strickland to vivisect it. Dr. Robert Hoffstetler – a scientist who is secretly a Russian spy named Dimitri Mosenkov – pleads unsuccessfully to keep the Amphibian Man alive for further study and simultaneously is ordered by his Soviet handlers to euthanize the creature. When Elisa overhears the American's plans for the Amphibian Man, she persuades Giles to help her liberate him. Hoffstetler stumbles upon Elisa's plot in progress and chooses to assist her. Though initially reluctant, Zelda also becomes involved in the successful escape.

Elisa keeps the Amphibian Man in her bathtub, planning to release him into a nearby canal in several days when it is scheduled to rain to provide access to the ocean. Strickland interrogates Elisa and Zelda, among others, but learns nothing. Back at the apartment, Giles discovers the Amphibian Man devouring one of his cats. Startled, the Amphibian Man slashes Giles's arm and rushes out of the apartment. He gets as far as the cinema downstairs before Elisa finds him and returns him to her apartment. The creature touches Giles on his balding head and wounded arm; the next morning, Giles discovers his hair has begun growing back, and the wounds on his arm have healed. After initially refusing, Elisa has sex with the Amphibian Man.

General Hoyt unexpectedly arrives and tells Strickland he has 36 hours to recover the Amphibian Man, or his career and life will be over. Meanwhile, Hoffstetler is told he will be extracted in two days. As the planned release date approaches, the Amphibian Man's health begins to deteriorate. Hoffstetler goes to meet his handlers with Strickland tailing him. At the rendezvous, Hoffstetler is shot by one of his handlers, but Strickland in turn not only shoots and kills both handlers, but also shoots Hoffstetler, having realized that he is a spy. Strickland tortures Hoffstetler, who is dying, into revealing specifics on the "team" which broke out Amphibian Man, and is surprised to learn that Elisa and Zelda are implicated. Strickland threatens Zelda at home, unsuccessfully, until her husband, Brewster, reveals that Elisa has the Amphibian Man. Zelda immediately telephones Elisa, warning her to release the creature. An enraged Strickland ransacks Elisa's empty apartment until he finds a calendar note revealing where she plans to release the Amphibian Man.

At the canal, Elisa and Giles are bidding farewell to the creature when Strickland arrives, knocks Giles down, and shoots both the Amphibian Man and Elisa. The Amphibian Man quickly heals himself and slashes Strickland's throat, killing him. As the police arrive on the scene with Zelda, the Amphibian Man takes Elisa and jumps into the canal where he heals her. When he applies his healing ability underwater to the scars on Elisa's neck, they open to reveal gills like his; she jolts back to life, and the two embrace. In a closing voice-over narration, Giles conveys his belief that Elisa lived "happily ever after" and "remained in love" with the Amphibian Man.