The Shape of Water
Short description
Set in Cold War America around 1962, the film follows Elisa Esposito, a mute woman working as a cleaner at a secret government laboratory in Baltimore. Isolated by her silence, she forms a friendship with her coworker Zelda Fuller and her neighbour Giles. Her life changes when she discovers that the facility is holding an amphibious creature with unusual abilities. Elisa begins to visit the creature in secret, and a bond grows between them that turns into love. When the laboratory's harsh security chief, Richard Strickland, and the military plan to use the creature for their own purposes, Elisa decides to free him, with help from Zelda and Giles, and the two flee while their pursuers close in.
Guillermo del Toro directed and co-wrote the screenplay with Vanessa Taylor, and produced it with J. Miles Dale. It is the tenth of the thirteen films he has directed, coming after Crimson Peak and before Nightmare Alley. Sally Hawkins plays Elisa, with Michael Shannon as Strickland, Richard Jenkins as Giles, Octavia Spencer as Zelda, Michael Stuhlbarg as Dr. Robert Hoffstetler, and Doug Jones as the Amphibian Man. The cast totals forty-one credited performers, with 118 credited crew members.
Made for twenty million dollars, the film earned about 195 million dollars worldwide. It holds a rating of 7.3 out of 10 on IMDb from 474,000 votes and 7.2 out of 10 on TMDB from 13,086 votes, while the film critics' rating stands at 8.4 out of 10 from 466 reviews.
What's left behind the scenes
- Filming took 12 weeks.
- Eliza displays existing records of The Great Benny Goodman and Glenn Miller Plays Selections from The Glenn Miller Story and Other Hits. Both were released in 1956.
- Guillermo del Toro began working on the film in 2011. He financed many aspects of the production (particularly the creation of the laboratory and the creature on screen) out of his own pocket.
- Initially, Guillermo del Toro wanted to shoot the film in black and white, but he changed his mind when the studio offered to increase the budget if the film was shot in color.
- It took Doug Jones three hours each day to get into the creature's costume. The actor stated that he had never had so much trouble with a costume in any of del Toro's previous films.
- It took over 9 months to create the creature's image. Guillermo del Toro states that 'The Shape of Water' is the most complex film he has ever undertaken.
- The main inspiration for creating 'The Shape of Water' was the film 'Creature from the Black Lagoon,' which the director watched as a child. Del Toro was already captivated by the gill-man despite his unappealing appearance, wanting to see a successful development of a romantic storyline between the creature and the kidnapped Kay Lawrence. Initially, Del Toro wanted to film a remake of the film, where the plot also revolves around an expedition in the upper Amazon, but with the difference that a woman leads the group, and a romance develops between her and the gill-man. The director attempted to negotiate with Universal about creating the film, but the company's executives rejected the idea.
Auditions in India
Casting calls in USA
Castingi w Polsce
Кастинги в Україні
