At a top secret research facility in the 1960s, a lonely janitor forms a unique relationship with an amphibious creature that is being held in captivity.
Elisa is a mute, isolated woman who works as a cleaning lady in a hidden, high-security government laboratory in 1962 Baltimore. Her life changes forever when she discovers the lab's classified secret -- a mysterious, scaled creature from South America that lives in a water tank. As Elisa develops a unique bond with her new friend, she soon learns that its fate and very survival lies in the hands of a hostile government agent and a marine biologist.
This is a film made by a boy who loves monsters, who has grown up to understand what they might represent to an adult woman, other outsiders (a gay man, a communist sleeper, a black woman) and an unforgiving society.
I'd love to spend hours with talking movies. His passion for the art form is infectious. Not being able to do that, at least I can watch The Shape of Water over and over again. It's a love story about a woman and a beast.
