“He’s coming for you,” Sally Hawkins is warned in the final trailer for “The Shape of Water.” Set against the backdrop of Cold War era U.S. circa 1963, the otherworldly fairy tale sees Hawkins playing Elisa, a lonely and isolated mute woman who works at in a hidden, high-security government laboratory. Elisa forms an intense connection with a mysterious creature (Doug Jones, “Hellboy”) being held captive in the lab for classified experiments.
Much stands between Elisa and the creature’s happy ending — including the fact that a lab employee, Strickland (Michael Shannon, “Loving”), is determined to take the creature apart to learn how it works. It’s he who is coming for Elisa. Along with the help of some friends, she’s engineered and executed a plot — complete with synchronized watches and obstructed security surveillance — to free the creature.
The new Red Band spot shows just how much of a threat — and asshole — Strickland is. In the midst of asking Elisa and a co-worker what they know about the missing creature, he says, “What am I doing interviewing the shit cleaners?” We also see him torturing the creature, claiming that he’s merely “keeping it tame.”
Check out the trailer to see Elisa’s covert mission in action. Directed by Guillermo del Toro (“Pan’s Labyrinth”), “The Shape of Water” hits theaters December 8. Vanessa Taylor (“Divergent”) co-wrote the script with del Toro. Octavia Spencer (“Hidden Figures”) co-stars.
Hawkins is earning Oscar buzz for the film, which has been receiving raves since it premiered at Venice Film Festival in August. She previously earned a nod for “Blue Jasmine” in 2014. She was last seen earlier this year in “Maudie,” Aisling Walsh’s critically acclaimed biopic about Canadian folk artist Maud Lewis.
