Sally Hawkins as Elisa Esposito
in "The Shape of Water" (2017)
Sally Hawkins' career isn't close to being over, but at this point it looks like the role she'll be most remembered for is Elisa Esposito, the mute janitor in Guillermo del Toro's romantic fantasy "The Shape of Water". Elisa cleans sinks and mops floors in a secret government research facility. The year is 1962. Octavia Spencer plays Elisa's work-place colleague Zelda and Michael Shannon's a sadistic security official named Strickland
Strickland's interrogating Zelda and Elisa to find out what they know about the disappearance of an amphibious, humanoid creature he's been torturing in a sort of steampunk dungeon. The women know more than they're telling. In a previous scene, Strickland made a crude pass at Elisa, who rejected him, and the two don't like each other. Failing to get any useful information, he dismisses them as "shit cleaners" and "piss wipers" who couldn't possibly know anything, anyway, and Elisa, who can hear but not speak, shoots him a look that says, unambiguously, "Fuck you."
That's reinforced a moment later, when Elisa stops on her way out the door and starts to sign "F - U - C - . . . " Strickland asks Zelda to translate. "She's saying thank you," Zelda replies, which is not what she's saying at all. What she's saying is unmistakable, even if you don't know sign, and Hawkins said it perfectly with that look.
