Elisa Esposito, played by Sally Hawkins, is a janitor at a top-secret government laboratory in Baltimore in 1962. She is mute, kept separate from her coworkers, and lives alone with a pet fish and a menagerie of small animals. Her life is quiet until a strange amphibious creature arrives at the lab. The creature, played by Doug Jones, is captured and displayed in a tank. Elisa sees him differently than anyone else. She looks past his otherness and sees a fellow being, a person in need of kindness.
That is the whole premise of The Shape of Water, and it carries the movie from start to finish. Director Guillermo del Toro builds a fable about connection, silence, and the simple act of seeing someone as human. The film is a fairy tale set in a Cold War bunker, with romance, suspense, and a creature that feels more like a dream than a monster. It is also a political parable about fear and exclusion, dressed in wide-eyed wonder.
Trailer, via SearchlightPictures.
Doug Jones and the Creature’s Design
Doug Jones plays the amphibian creature with a physical grace that sells the entire conceit. He moves like water, his hands and feet curling and spreading in ways that make him feel alive rather than rubbery. The costume design, by Luis Seixeiro, turns him into a living statue, a man covered in scales who can breathe air and move through water. He is not a threat, though the lab treats him as one. He is a prisoner, and Elisa is the only person willing to see him as anything else.
Sally Hawkins anchors the film. She has to convey everything through expression, posture, and gesture, since she cannot speak. Hawkins finds a way to make Elisa’s muteness feel like a superpower rather than a disability. She watches, listens, and understands, and the film trusts her enough to let scenes sit without dialogue. The result is a performance that feels effortless even when it requires tremendous control.
The creature’s name is never spoken aloud, and neither is Elisa’s. The film operates on first names and nicknames, which suits its fairy-tale logic. The creature is simply the man in the tank, and Elisa is the girl who cleans. This anonymity is deliberate. The story is not about individuals so much as it is about types: the lonely one, the outsider, the captor, the protector.
Elisa’s Home and the Lab’s Contrast
Elisa’s apartment is a character in itself. It is small, warm, and filled with life. There is a goldfish in a bowl, a cat, a lizard, and a bird. Each animal represents a kind of comfort, a small world she controls. The lab, by contrast, is cold, sterile, and full of fear. The two spaces could not be more different, and the film uses them to show what Elisa loses when she leaves her home and what she gains when she brings the creature back to it.
Octavia Spencer plays Zelda, Elisa’s neighbor and best friend. Zelda is loud, talkative, and fiercely protective of Elisa. She is the voice of common sense in a story that often drifts into the surreal. Her scenes are some of the funniest in the film, but they also carry the emotional weight of loyalty. When Elisa needs help, Zelda is there, even when the danger is supernatural.
Richard Jenkins plays Mr. Strickland, the lab’s chief scientist. He is a bureaucrat who believes he is doing the right thing, but he is also cruel. He sees the creature as a weapon, a tool, a specimen. His scenes with Doug Jones are tense, and Jenkins plays the role with a cold efficiency that makes him frightening without ever raising his voice. He is the villain, but the film never makes him cartoonish. He is just a man doing his job, and that is what makes him dangerous.
The Romance Between Elisa and the Creature
The relationship between Elisa and the creature is the engine of the film. It is a romance built on mutual understanding, not speech. They communicate through touch, through sound, through the rhythm of their movements. Elisa teaches the creature to sing, and the creature teaches her to feel. The film never explains how they connect. It simply shows them connecting, and that is enough.
Michael Shannon plays Colonel Richard Strickland, the military officer overseeing the creature’s capture. He is a bully, a man who enjoys power and despises weakness. He is the one who wants the creature destroyed, and he is the one who will stop at nothing to get it. Shannon plays him with a sneer that is both funny and terrifying. He is the opposite of Elisa, and the film uses their opposition to make its point about empathy and cruelty.
The film also features a brief appearance by Michael Stuhlbarg as Dr. Robert Denham, a scientist who studies the creature. He is a foil to Strickland, a man of curiosity rather than conquest. He sees the creature as a wonder, not a weapon. His scenes are brief but effective, and they give the film a moral center beyond Elisa’s goodness.
The Political Undercurrent
The Shape of Water is not just a love story. It is also a political allegory about the Cold War, about fear, and about the way governments treat the strange and the foreign. The film draws parallels between the creature’s treatment and the persecution of homosexuals, of immigrants, of anyone who does not fit the norm. It is a story about seeing someone for who they are, not what they look like.
The film is also a critique of bureaucracy. The lab is run by rules, not by compassion. The creature is a project, a goal, a thing to be achieved. The people who work there are cogs in a machine, and the machine is indifferent to their humanity. Elisa is the one who breaks that machine, not by force but by love.
The music, by Alexandre Desplat, is a mix of gentle piano and orchestral sweep. It swells during the romantic scenes and recedes during the quieter ones. It never overpowers the images, and it never tells you what to feel. It simply supports the story, giving it a sense of scale without losing its intimacy.
The Escape and the Ending
The third act of The Shape of Water is where the film earns its place. The creature is captured, and Elisa must act. She leads a daring escape, aided by Zelda and Dr. Denham. The sequence is tense, beautifully choreographed, and genuinely thrilling. It is a chase scene that feels mythic, like something out of a folk tale.
The ending is ambiguous, and that is the right choice. The film does not resolve the conflict neatly. It leaves the creature’s fate open, which is fitting for a story about acceptance. The final image is a promise of hope, not a statement of victory. It is a note that lingers, and it rewards the patient viewer.
The film is not perfect. Some of the supporting characters feel underdeveloped, and the pacing drags in the middle. But the strengths outweigh the weaknesses. The performances are strong, the direction is confident, and the themes are handled with care.
What Works Best
Here is what stands out:
- The chemistry between Sally Hawkins and Doug Jones. Their scenes together are the heart of the film, and they never miss a beat.
- The design of the creature. It is a practical effect that holds up, a real creature that feels lived-in rather than digital.
- The use of silence. Hawkins’s muteness is a constant presence, and the film honors it throughout.
- The political subtext. The Cold War setting is not just window dressing; it shapes every decision in the story.
- The ending. It is a bold choice that respects the audience’s intelligence.
There is also room for improvement. The script leans on coincidence at times, and the villain’s motivations could have been made clearer. But these are minor complaints in a film that gets so much right.
The Shape of Water is a rare thing: a commercial success that is also an artistic triumph. It won three Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Actress for Hawkins. That recognition was deserved. The film is a reminder that big ideas and small pleasures can coexist in the same story, and that a fairy tale can say something true about the world.
The film’s message is simple: see people. Look past the surface, past the label, past the fear. The creature is not a monster. He is a man, and he deserves to be loved. Elisa sees that, and the film asks us to see it too.
