Issue #195
GDT's Frankenstein
It’s been evident, for quite some time, that Frankenstein is a work that director Guillermo del Toro holds close to his heart. It’s a subject he’s waxed eloquent about in many interviews over the years, but you don’t have to listen to any of those to understand how much he loves both Mary Shelley’s novel and James Whale’s 1931 film adaptation. Frankenstein tends to be a foundational text for any artist who is drawn to misunderstood monsters, and as such, key pieces of it continue to drift to the surface throughout del Toro’s filmography (much as it has throughout the work of Tim Burton).
As such, when it was announced that del Toro would be making a proper Frankenstein adaptation, it felt both inevitable and surprising. On the one hand, yes, obviously, he’s the guy you give a Frankenstein adaptation to. On the other, I couldn’t help but wonder whether his primary allegiance was to Shelley or Whale (who offer pretty dramatically different takes on the material), and how that tension would manifest itself in a fresh adaptation.
The answer is that Del Toro is eager to pay homage to both of them, but his true loyalty lies with The Creature. Above all else, the 2025 Frankenstein is a love letter to Victor Frankenstein’s tormented creation; a kind hand placed on the shoulder of an angry son betrayed by his father. This is both the film’s greatest strength and its most significant liability: del Toro loves The Creature so much that he chooses to be exceptionally kind to him, which creates moments of indelible tenderness… sometimes at the expense of the tale’s thematic depth.
On a structural level, the story follows the beats of the novel fairly closely: we begin and end in the arctic, and the basic framework of Victor and The Creature’s narratives remain intact. However, GDT is doing lots of tinkering within that framework, adjusting things both large and small throughout. This is not an adaptation that significantly alters who lives and who dies, but dramatically adjusts how they live and die.
After a prologue that introduces Victor Frankenstein (Oscar Isaac) as a desperate man fleeing a violent, rage-filled beast, GDT dutifully takes us on a tour of Victor’s early years. His father (Charles Dance) is a stern disciplinarian, and here we receive yet another reminder that villains have never been del Toro’s strong suit. The director’s affection for the lonely and misunderstood is equaled by his contempt for bullies and bigots, and as a result, the bullies and bigots who populate his films rarely have much dimension. They stomp on opportunities to show any sort of decency, just to reinforce what bad people they are. As such, when Victor’s pregnant mother is thrust into a situation where her life can only be saved if her baby is sacrificed, and young Victor sobs “save my mother!”, we know exactly what decision Victor’s legacy-obsessed father is going to make.
Once Victor is an adult, we see him challenging the medical world with his wild theories of how death might be conquered (Isaac plays this material with wild-eyed fervor, embracing madness from the outset rather than gradually slipping into it). His controversial theories capture the attention of wealthy arms dealer Henrich Harlander (Christoph Waltz, attempting to offset the mustache-twirling role he’s been given with an admirably subdued performance), who has his own private reasons for wanting Victor to succeed. Henrich agrees to fund Victor’s endeavors, and we’re off to the races.
Over time, Victor develops feelings for Henrich’s niece Elizabeth (Mia Goth), who is engaged to be married to Victor’s younger brother William (Felix Kammerer). Elizabeth is one of the few people in Victor’s orbit who is willing to challenge him on his ideas, which he ultimately finds intellectually stimulating, and there’s a push-pull of mutual fascination and annoyance between them. Even so, the possibility of forbidden romance merely simmers in the background here: Victor is ultimately too in love with his work to truly pursue anyone or anything else.
Despite some good moments, much of the film’s first half feels a bit too much like the fulfillment of an obligation. GDT is making the part of the movie he has to make so that he can ultimately get around to making the movie he wants to make. This feeling is most accentuated by the fact that he doesn’t seem to have a particularly clear read on Victor, who seems to be misguided in a fairly complicated way in some scenes (along the lines of Kenneth Branagh’s interpretation in 1994’s thunderous Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein), and a gleeful sadist in others (closer to Peter Cushing’s take in Terence Fisher’s The Curse of Frankenstein).
However, film finds its footing once The Creature (Jacob Elordi) arrives. In his early scenes, he is essentially playing the character as Boris Karloff did, as a pitiful, near-mute beast who largely expresses himself with his body language and eyes. Victor attempts to teach his creation how to act like a human, and for a moment, there is the sort of tenderness between them you might see between a parent and their newborn child. However, it doesn’t take long for the relationship to curdle: Victor grows frustrated with The Creature’s lack of progress (he simply utters the same word — “Victor” — over and over again), and lashes out. Despite the pain he once experienced, Victor addresses his child’s shortcomings in the same way his own father once did, with physical abuse and hostility. Naturally, The Creature grows agitated and withdrawn.
Later, after the relationship between Victor and The Creature has become unsalvageable, The Creature begins to develop the ability to communicate with language, and becomes a version of the fiercely articulate character from Shelley’s novel. This transition largely happens during an interlude at an isolated farm, where The Creature forms a friendship with an old blind man (David Bradley, who brings some of the same rough-hewn warmth that he brought to his voiceover performance in del Toro’s gorgeous stop-motion version of Pinocchio). It’s a beautiful passage, one that sees Elordi expertly capturing his character’s complex inner life and seamlessly bridging the gap between one kind of performance and another.
Nearly every time The Creature is onscreen — and he usually is, in the film’s second half — the movie works. Not only because he’s the character del Toro is most invested in, but because Elordi continually finds fresh ways to make this oh-so-familiar character feel vital and new. You feel every ounce of the pain behind his rage, and that’s something we’ve seen before — in Robert De Niro’s performance, for instance, or in Christopher Lee’s. But there’s so much more here: curiosity, and sulkiness, and amusement, and even joy. It’s such a rich interpretation, possibly a definitive one.
Aside from Elordi, the film’s other outstanding contribution comes from composer Alexandre Desplat, who does such complex and rewarding musical storytelling throughout. There are moments of both quiet subtlety and aggressive assertiveness, and Desplat’s understanding of when to push and when to step back allows the most dramatic moments to have real impact. Consider his darkly playful waltz material during the lab scenes, or his Philip Glass-esque theatricality during an explosive key sequence midway through the film. Throughout, the violin of soloist Eldbjorg Hemsing forms a key component of the score’s identity, expertly defining the troubled currents running through the minds of these characters.
Aside from the film’s wobbly opening stretch, there are stray blunders along the way. Nothing pulls me out of a modern blockbuster faster than CG animals, and there are a lot of them here — it’s most distracting during two wolf attacks that feel like aggravating digital intrusions. The 152-minute film is pretty deliberately paced, which I didn’t mind — this is an adaptation that largely focuses on regret and yearning rather than vengeance and bloodshed, which is correct — but there are stray bursts of violence throughout that feel a bit tonally at odds with the rest (not all of them, but some), as if del Toro felt some measure of anxiety about keeping the audience awake between more lyrical passages. And Mia Goth’s Elizabeth, though compelling in her early scenes, ultimately gets lost in the shuffle of this film’s tortured father-son saga. But much like The Creature, the movie is ultimately able to heal from its various wounds.
The film’s conclusion is its boldest stroke, and I can understand why some might object to it. Here is the point at which del Toro decides to set aside such a significant portion of Shelley’s thematic core. I was once in a stage adaptation of Frankenstein that featured a scene in which The Creature expresses his affection for the old blind man by hugging him, and in the process, he accidentally crushes his only friend to death. You could argue that on some level that’s what del Toro is doing with this ending, affectionately crushing a good story.
But I don’t think so, because it’s also the film’s most emotionally potent moment. Though there’s an abundance of crossover, film is a fundamentally emotional medium, while literature is a fundamentally intellectual one. Thanks to the combined forces of del Toro’s soulful direction, Desplat’s astonishing music (which is melodically expressive at this point to a degree the score rarely permits itself elsewhere), and Elordi’s remarkably committed performance, I not only bought this conclusion, but loved it. If Guillermo del Toro is going to make a Frankenstein movie, his ending is the reason he should. And while a truly a masterful take on the material remains elusive — this remains on the shelf of good-but-not-quite-great adaptations, alongside the attempts from Whale, Branagh, and Fisher — I’m grateful to have GDT’s compassionate entry as part of the set.
Back at ya later