Frankenstein

Released 2025. Director: Guillermo Del Toro

THE LATEST ADAPTATION OF MARY SHELLEY'S AGELESS TALE of Dr Frankenstein and his creation is unmistakably the work of Guillermo Del Toro. Throughout his career the renowned Mexican director has explored the connection between humans and beasts, the living and the restless dead, and finding humanity in the rejected and hideous in movies such as Pan's Labyrinth, The Devil's Backbone, The Shape of Water, Nightmare Alley and the Hellboy movies. Even the visual palette in Frankenstein is a facsimile of the dilapidation and desolation seen in his Crimson Peak. You could say Del Toro has funnelled everything he knows into the making of his latest movie, easily the most grandiose of his career.

In 1857, the radical Dr Victor Frankenstein succeeds in creating a living human from a patchwork of dead anatomy with help from several lightning bolts. But his success is no cause for celebration, for it's preceded immediately by a murder and continued with savagery. The obsessive scientist is played here with an over-dramatic flourish by Oscar Isaac. The kind of acting calculated to unleash the sound and fury expected in a man of great passion. The lack of nuance has probably worked in favour as a contrast to the creeping pathos generated by his creature later.

The creature, never given a name because his creator doesn't take him as human (he calls this seven-foot tall giant “it”), is first introduced to the audience as an unstoppable killer. The movie opens in the Arctic where the sailors of a vessel stuck in ice come upon the monster-like creature who turns out to be bulletproof and possessed of superhuman strength. No matter what they throw at him, the creature keeps coming at them to get his hands on the mortally wounded Victor who the crew have just rescued.

Victor's account of the events that led to that moment forms the first half of the movie. In his eyes the creature is an abomination, an unthinking brute that will not hesitate to rip you apart limb by limb. It's only when we see the story in the next half from the creature's vantage that Del Toro turns the hideous monster into a sympathetic and misunderstood person with human emotions and desires and an innate capacity to tell right from wrong.

Hiding in a farmhouse for protection (an indication that the ferocious giant doesn't think he's invincible), the creature befriends a blind old man, played gracefully by David Bradley. The scenes featuring the two are genuinely touching, where the unseeing but trustful old man reads to the creature and teaches him to speak. The sad creature in turn learns about acceptance and experiences the power of human kindness. The sentiment here recalls Del Toro's last movie Pinocchio, in which the wooden puppet wishes to become a real human boy, just as the creature here begins to long for a real sense of connection and companionship.

Jacob Elordi, whose star in Hollywood continues to rise (he'll be seen soon with Margot Robbie in a remake of Wuthering Heights), sheds his good looks and is unrecognisable as the creature. Elordi manages to find small spaces to build sympathy and suggestions of humanity whether he's unclothed in patches of grey skin or heavily cloaked like a towering wild animal. He's like a precursor to the Hulk, misunderstood and feared but only attack when he's provoked and has a tender, protective side he reserves for those with compassion.

The idea that Victor is father to the creature is explicit if only by virtue of the scientist literally bestowing the spark of life. The creature's beginnings – chained underground, no warmth or affection – serves as a metaphor for abusive parenting. Some people want children but they have no clue how to raise them. Victor has no fatherly instincts towards the innocent creature looking to him for guidance and nurture. The portrayal of a failed parenthood reaches its extreme when Victor sets the place on fire and leaves the creature to be burned to death. Victor's destructive attitude can be attributed to his own upbringing, the emotional scars from a distant father, if that's indeed Del Toro's intention of double underlining a comment about parenthood.

Del Toro's movies are characterised by a dark aesthetics and Frankenstein is presented in sweeping, atmospheric visuals, striking in a Gothic fashion. The set design is by turns opulent and desolate, the palette suggests wealth as well as ruin and loneliness, the costumes and props exemplify attention to detail. Nevertheless some of the CGI-heavy scenes seem out of place. The pack of wolves at the farm house appear like smooth animation and unrealistic in the wild, almost mythical wasteland setting.

The storytelling style in Frankenstein aims for epic and leans mostly towards the sensational. At the centrestage it's the ungodly tangle between Victor and his creature. Embroiled in the drama at their own peril are Victor's benefactor played by a devious Christof Waltz with an ulterior motive; his trusting brother William played by Felix Kammerer and William's fiance Elizabeth played by Mia Goth, who calls Victor a monster.

In the end, after father and son (let's call him that) have told their separate tales, this is a tragic story about punishment for hubris, redemption at death bed and that for some, life is simply a curse. Flawed but a big movie in more ways than one. If you liked Del Toro's other movies, Frankenstein will add to that list.

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