The Shape of Water

The Shape of Water (2017) is Guillermo del Toro's romantic fantasy, and you can watch it online on iFILM. Cold War America, 1962. A mute cleaning woman at a secret lab falls for the creature locked inside it.

Elisa (Sally Hawkins) mops floors at a government facility and speaks to almost no one — only in sign, with her friend Zelda (Octavia Spencer) and her lonely artist neighbor (Richard Jenkins). Then a tank arrives carrying an amphibious being caught in the Amazon. The man running the project, the cold and cruel Strickland played by Michael Shannon, sees a weapon. Elisa sees something alive and alone. So she plans an escape that could cost her everything.

Del Toro built a grown-up fairy tale for the people the world tends to overlook: the mute, the Black, the gay, the outsider from the water. The film took four Academy Awards, among them Best Picture and Best Director, and the creature was performed by the director's frequent collaborator Doug Jones under heavy makeup. Stream The Shape of Water (2017) online on iFILM.