The TIFF Film Review: Guillermo del Toro’s “Frankenstein“
By Ross
NORTH AMERICAN PREMIERE – United States of America | 2025 | 149m | English
In deep, dark red, black, and white canvases, Oscar-winning director Guillermo del Toro has delivered unto us at TIFF a visually expansive and outrageously beautiful adaptation of Mary Shelley’s gothic masterpiece that fills the screen with vistas as sumptuous as one would expect from this filmmaker. “Your face is vanity,” states the young man’s father (Charles Dance), setting up a psychological construct that haunts the whole framing as excellently as the entire conjuring. The story is drenched in the idea of madness and despair, of a brilliant creator driven to the brink of inner destruction, and a formidable creation who pushes him there, and with the intensely talented Oscar Isaac (“Inside Llewyn Davis“; Broadway’s The Sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window) portraying the aggressively brilliant scientist, Victor Frankenstein, this version of “Frankenstein” lives up to the hype, and delivers the icy battleground between life, death, grief, and the torturous madness of the mind and body.
Written and directed by the masterful Guillermo Del Toro (“The Shape of Water“; “Pan’s Labyrinth“), his “Frankenstein” is a meditation on grief, parenthood, and the dangerous seduction of power, trapping us in its Northern icy grip, hard and immovable, keeping us completely in its power. But unlike that ship where the tale spins out from the found man and his tormentor, the tale is rich and blood warm, filled with overwhelming emotional currents that could move mountains, yet also unleash unthinkable, unearthly monsters that haunt forever. Del Toro’s new version of Mary Shelley’s novel finds a feverish dream inside a grand melodramatic masterpiece, anchoring the emotional currency in a parental dynamic that is unpacked in glorious tones and color, thanks to the magnificent work of production designer Tamara Deverell (Del Toro’s “Cabinet of Curiosities“) and cinematographer Dan Laustsen (Del Toro’s “Crimson Peak“).
The visual splendour of the film doesn’t distract, but pulls us deep into the passionate heart of the freethinking anatomist Victor Frankenstein as he challenges the medical world with his scientific constructs. And with the twisted (borderline comical) help of the wealthy arms manufacturer Harlander (Christoph Waltz), offering to bankroll Frankenstein’s creation of an artificial man, a monstrous project of epic proportions is electrified in the most perfectly crafted location, destined to go down as the most picturesque mad laboratory one could ever imagine.
The same could be said of his Creature, constructed from a single dead body, a soldier’s salvaged from the battlefield. That formula has brought to life the most gloriously formed Creature, portrayed heroically by the impossibly handsome Jacob Elordi (“Saltburn“), who will change the way we see Frankenstein’s monster forever. Gone are the neck-bolts and high white forehead. In its place, we have a physique that looks aching to move and engage, vibrating with a desire to embrace life and all the electron impulses within its biological structure. It’s as picturesque and compelling as the whole film, and as heartbreaking as we watch the figure chained down and dismissed by the arrogance of his creator.
The film, shot at a vast studio in Toronto and on location in Scotland, feels as grand and epic as one could hope for, with complete reverence to the source material, even in the liberties Del Toro takes with the novel. It is his singular vision unleashed into our imagination, and it will never leave. It’s not as fascinating or cleverly abstract as Yorgos Lanthimos’s deeply interesting “Poor Things“, a comparison that is almost impossible to keep from sneaking into your consciousness while watching Del Toro’s visionary piece, especially as we encounter this film’s modern version of Elizabeth (and Victor’s mother, Claire Frankenstein), both played hypnotically by the stunningly pale Mia Goth (“Suspiria“; “Pearl“).
The torturous desire that swirls around her like a snowstorm, particularly on the day she is about to marry Victor’s brother, William (Felix Kammerer), and the way she looks and engages with the Creature, is both heartbreaking and exhilarating, all stitched together as intricately as the impressive costumes she inhabits within, thanks to the award-worthy work of costume designer Kate Hawley (“Edge of Tomorrow“). Still, for all Goth’s mastery of tone and movement, Del Toro’s screenplay keeps her at a symbolic remove, using her as a muse rather than exploring the deep emotional logic behind her choices. Just as Victor withholds humanity from his Creature, del Toro withholds it from Elizabeth. Her emotional currency is hinted at but never fully spent, leaving a fascinating figure slightly underdeveloped in an otherwise fully fleshed-out world.
Playing out the background story, of the young, tightly wound Victor (Christian Convery) abused and bullied by a cruel, hard father, as well as the young physician trying to both surpass him intellectually, defy the angel of death (Roberto Campanella) who took away his much beloved mother (Goth), and comprehend the meaning of life and his obsessional love for his brother’s fiancé, the ingenuity of Del Toro shines through in epic style. His story is deliberately and compulsively released into the hands of the ship’s captain (Lars Mikkelsen) on that trapped vessel being circled by the vengeful creature in the middle of an ice field in the Arctic Circle, desperate to expunge the shame, guilt, and horror of what he has done from his mind and soul. But its true unpacking comes when the storytelling switches to the Creature, who fills out the narrative with his own experiences after he survives the fire and is shown love by an isolated blind man in a snowbound cottage lit only by firelight over the winter. It’s the blind man who teaches the Creature about humanity, and becomes the father figure they both needed, but only the Creature was able to actually feel its warmth. It is in that framing where the emotional soul and heartbreak truly reside, and we see it radiate from Elordi’s trembling voice.
Del Toro closes his “Frankenstein” on an image as stark and aching as anything in his career: the Creature adrift on the ice, whispering not for vengeance but for belonging. It’s a reminder that in del Toro’s hands, monsters are never simply monstrous; they are mirrors, demanding that we confront the parts of ourselves we exile. Like Shelley’s novel, this “Frankenstein” is not just another prestige adaptation, nor a movie about a monster; it’s a tragic love story between a maker and what he has made, and between a society and the outcast it refuses to embrace. At 149 minutes, it can feel operatic, even overstuffed, but the sheer vision on display and the Creature’s shattering final act make it unforgettable—an experience both devastating and unshakeably beautiful.
