Watch a Clip From Guillermo del Toro’s The Shape of Water
Guillermo del Toro films are always an event, and his latest, The Shape of Water, is currently the talk of the Venice Film Festival. Fox Searchlight has released the first clip from the film, which features Sally Hawkins as a lonely woman named Elisa, who works as a janitor at a top-secret government laboratory. The lab is home to one very special inhabitant, a humanoid creature that lives underwater (think of an amphibian-human without language but with incredible grace). The clip shows the moment that Elisa becomes aware of the creature, which is being transferred in a water-filled, heavily reinforced tube.
Del Toro is enjoying his best reviews since his stunning Pan’s Labyrinth, another period piece that merged the wonders of his fantastical imagination and the horrors or the real world’s carnage (in that case, the Spanish civil war.) Here, we’re in Cold War era America (1963), and Elisa’s lonely life is upended when she comes into contact with a creature even more lonely than she is. The reviews coming out of Venice, from Time, indieWire, Variety The Hollywood Reporter and more are all glowing. The Shape of Water is being called ravishing, eccentric, lovingly steeped in vinage movie magic, and brimming with extraordinary visual imagination. Hawkins is joined by a stellar cast, including Octavia Spencer, as her co-worker Zelda, Michael Shannon, as the government heavy, and Michael Stuhlbarg, as a scientist. The Shape of Water is due December 8, mark it on your calendars, it’s one of Fall’s must-sees.
Here’s the film’s official synopsis:
From master story teller Guillermo del Toro, comes THE SHAPE OF WATER – an other-worldly fairy tale, set against the backdrop of Cold War era America circa 1963. In the hidden high-security government laboratory where she works, lonely Elisa (Sally Hawkins) is trapped in a life of silence and isolation. Elisa’s life is changed forver when she and co-worker Zelda (Octavia Spencer) discover a secret classified experiment. Rounding out the cast are Michael Shannon, Richard Jenkins, Michael Stuhlbarg and Doug Jones.
Featured image: Sally Hawkins in the film THE SHAPE OF WATER. Photo by Kerry Hayes. © 2017 Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation
