Guillermo del Toro has been thinking about Mary Shelley’s novel for a lifetime. He has described Frankenstein as “the quintessential teenage book,” and his famous Bleak House in Los Angeles is filled with versions of the creature from various film and stage adaptations. Naturally, the director has also imagined turning it into a movie himself. “I dream I can make the greatest Frankenstein ever, but then if you make it, you’ve made it,” he said a decade ago. “Whether it’s great or not, it’s done. You cannot dream about it anymore.”
Del Toro’s take on Frankenstein isn’t a dramatic reinvention of the classic monster myth. Instead, it explores the story through the lens of the director’s ongoing preoccupations: finding beauty in darkness, the tainting of innocence, and the inevitable conflict between parent and child. He then infuses the film with his signature sense of style and attention to detail, turning a 200-year-old story into something almost completely his own.
The core of the story remains the same. It’s told from two perspectives: first up is Victor Frankenstein (Oscar Isaac), an egomaniac singularly obsessed with the idea of conquering death. He shows his findings to respected doctors and scientists, but mostly everyone finds his theatrical demonstrations — which involve a ragged torso being jolted into a brief moment of life — unsettling and horrifying. That is until Victor meets Harlander (Christoph Waltz), a wealthy arms dealer who agrees to fund his reanimation research.
Image: Netflix
One of the movie’s strengths is how clearly it illustrates Victor’s mania. His mother, to whom he was very close, died when he was young, and the rest of his childhood was spent having medical sciences drilled into him by a cold and distant father. This combination created an unyielding desire to bring the dead back to life. And with Harlander’s backing, he’s able to focus on this entirely. He builds a laboratory in a remote tower and carefully combs through morgues and battlefields in search of the parts he needs, inspecting bodies as if he was selecting a steak at a butcher.
Frankenstein gets into the nitty-gritty detail of this act of creation, which helps ground the otherwise fantastical story. The creature is unusually tall, for example, because Victor realized it would be easier to work on larger body parts. Seeing all of the work and thought that went into the process means that, even though you know what’s coming, it still feels miraculous when Victor flips the switch and a stitched-together man (Jacob Elordi) comes to life.
Things change almost as soon as the creature opens its eyes. As Victor notes early on, “He never considered what would come after creation.” There are some brief and tender points where Victor acts like a real dad, but he also keeps the creature chained up in a basement. The creature is strong and has healing powers — imagine a gothic Wolverine — but his mind develops slowly. For a long time, the only word he can say is “Victor.” This pisses Victor off to an incredible degree. Eventually, he comes to regret his creation and tries to destroy it by blowing up the lab.
It’s a heartbreaking moment that casts an oblivious giant out into a harsh world. From there, the story is viewed through the creature’s perspective; it’s not long before, despite his gentle nature, the world similarly abandons him because of his terrifying visage. One of the few things keeping him going is Victor’s sister-in-law Elizabeth (Mia Goth), the only one who views the creature as a person. Eventually, the creature — who can’t escape his grim life through death because of his healing powers — hunts down Victor to get his revenge.
Image: Netflix
Aside from a few changes, that’s generally how Frankenstein goes down in most interpretations. But there are a few things that elevate del Toro’s long-gestating take on the story. One is how clearly and powerfully it leans into the parental theme. Victor is a shitty dad, one who only really cares about his progeny in relation to what he gets out of it. He wants the creature to be smart and impressive to prove the validity of his work. When things don’t work out right away, he casts the creature out and absolves himself of the entire ordeal. That wounded monster then spends the rest of his life trying to find some kind of meaning in his suffering, and — despite his understandable rage — never fully gives up on his father figure. The way the relationship culminates in the end is surprisingly touching.
Every element of the film is laser-focused on enhancing this theme. Isaac’s natural charisma makes him an ideal Victor. Elordi, meanwhile, takes you on a real emotional journey, starting as a towering, doe-eyed child before steadily becoming a terrifying, tragic beast. He also looks unlike any iteration of the monster before, a pale man covered in geometrical scars that somehow feels both plausible and fantastical. This all works in concert with the stunning set design, elaborate costumes, and haunting dream imagery that del Toro films are known for. Even the coffins look incredible.
It may have taken a while to get made, but you can really see where that time went while watching Frankenstein. Like the man-made monster at the story’s center, the film stitches together disparate but familiar elements to create something that feels alive and new.
Frankenstein is coming to select theaters on October 17th and streaming on Netflix on November 7th.
