In 1962, in the depths of the Cold War, deep in a cold concrete maze of hallways and vault doors, there is a secret laboratory. In that laboratory, in a steel tank, within a secured and unnamed room, there is a secret within that secret: an amphibious, man-like creature captured by the US government from the untamed wilds of a South American jungle and subjected to experiments in confinement. Both of these secrets are known to Elisa (Sally Hawkins, Happy Go Lucky, Blue Jasmine), a clever and unassuming woman employed as a janitor and largely ignored because of her mute condition. But Eliza knows more than almost anybody in the lab. Over time, she and the creature spark a friendship. They communicate about their own worlds, so different from each other’s. And maybe more secrets unfold in the heart of this romantic, fantastic, horrific puzzle box of a film by master Guillermo del Toro (Pan’s Labyrinth, Cronos, Crimson Peak)