“Frankenstein” is A Masterful, Revalatory Adaptation

Guillermo del Toro has long been the patron saint of the monstrous. The filmmaker who began his career back in 1992 with his exceptional vampire-centric debut, Cronos, has now been in the business of making audiences question their undying allegiance to the conventionally attractive “protagonists” of fairy tales and myths for over thirty years. During this time, he has delivered a number of stone-cold, indisputable classics, such as The Devil’s Backbone, Pan’s Labyrinth, Hellboy II: The Golden Army, The Shape of Water, and Nightmare Alley.

Del Toro not only has very distinct storytelling sensibilities and thematic fascinations, but also has a decadent sense of visual language and design that bleeds into every one of his works in startling fashion. As he has progressed as a filmmaker, these sensibilities have only grown all the more pronounced, in deeply fascinating ways. Nowhere is this more apparent than in his latest film, Frankenstein, which serves as a culmination of the filmmaker’s career thus far and an astonishing work of film, in and of itself.

TOP FIVE THINGS ABOUT “FRANKENSTEIN”

5. The Look

At this point, it practically feels nonchalant to say that a new Guillermo del Toro movie looks really good, but it really cannot be overstated: every visual facet of Frankenstein is absolutely stunning. Working with frequent collaborators such as cinematographer Dan Laustsen (of The Shape of Water and Nightmare Alley) and production designer Tamara Deverell (of Nightmare Alley and GDT’s excellent 2022 Netflix anthology horror series, Cabinet of Curiosities), del Toro delivers a grandiose work that feels equally decadent and tactile.

While the film will be getting its widest release on Netflix next month, I genuinely cannot implore you enough to see this on the big screen if at all possible. It is the largest-scale canvas that del Toro has ever worked on before, and every single one of even the most minute elements within the frame feels so fully formed and meticulously considered. In so many ways, this film feels like Francis Ford Coppola’s Bram Stoker’s Dracula; a tour de force cinematic accomplishment rooted in phantasmagoric and often hypnotic beauty.

4. The Ensemble Cast

The entire cast assembled here is wonderful, with special praise going to the lead trio of Oscar Isaac, Mia Goth, and Jacob Elordi. Fascinatingly, while Goth is the only performer in the film to literally play two separate roles (she plays both the Frankenstein matriarch and later love interest, Elizabeth, in what is a truly inspired callback to the dual roles Elsa Lanchester played in Bride of Frankenstein), both Isaac and Elordi practically play two different characters as well, thanks to the range of diversity afforded to them by the two-fold approach to the story’s structure.

Isaac does such an inspired job of capturing Victor’s early passions and ambitions, and allowing that to gradually give way to something far more jaded and disillusioned is so affecting, with him making you feel it every step of the way. Goth is a pre-eminent name in horror, and rightfully so, as she does genuinely give two different great performances in this that feel miles apart from one another. And lastly, Elordi is absolutely transcendent as The Creature.

The look of The Creature is, as you would expect, very different and phenomenally well-sculpted, but it is genuinely Elordi’s performance that sells the role and the film as a whole. He’s able to tap into something so pure, innocent, and romantic here that is just so enthralling to watch. His performance has echoes of Karloff’s gentler performance in the most magical of ways, never feeling like it is stepping on those toes, while also being something so distinctly his own. Unbelievable stuff.

3. An Enthralling Adaptation

I love Frankenstein. Mary Shelley’s 1818 novel remains a bona fide favorite of mine that I return to every couple of years, and I think James Whales’ first two Frankenstein films from the ‘30s, Frankenstein and Bride of Frankenstein, are among the ranks of the greatest horror films ever made. So I’m always excited and a bit hesitant when it comes to new iterations of the story. However, Guillermo del Toro’s script for this film is among one of the most inspired takes on the story I have ever seen, charting a bold new course with clear reverence for the very iterations I just mentioned.

So much of the story is rooted in Mary Shelley’s novel, which is notably very different from the film version everyone is more familiar with. Del Toro even keeps the structure of the novel largely intact, while also interweaving moments from both of Whales’ films, even featuring what I’m pretty sure was a sly cameo from Karloff himself.

All in all, this is the first adaptation in decades that feels not merely like a retread of things we’ve seen hundreds of times before, but an actual furthering of the thematic ideas at play. By stripping things back, shedding the veneer of the surface-level familiarity, del Toro is able to get to the bones of this story with startling precision, and the result is nothing short of astonishing.

2. “The Spirit of the Forest” Sequence

My favorite sequence in all of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein novel is this sequence. It is a standout moment that sees The Creature learning about humanity in such humanistic, empathetic, and deeply affecting fashion, that I am in awe of it every single time I read it. While elements of the sequence have been pulled and adapted before (notably the blind man sequence from Bride of Frankenstein and Gene Hackman’s scene in Young Frankenstein), Guillermo del Toro adapts the sequence in full, and I could kiss him on the lips for that.

He very much adds his own verve to it, recontextualizing the narrative beats and surface-level details, but he turns this sequence into the beating heart of the film in such palpable fashion that I am genuinely still reeling from it. This is the moment that Elordi’s performance was cemented as an all-timer for me, and is among my favorite cinematic sequences I have seen this year.

1. In Conversation with Monsters

Guillermo del Toro doesn’t just retell stories; he reinvents them. One need look no further than earlier films like The Shape of Water or even Hellboy II, both of which saw him taking established stories (Creature from the Black Lagoon and the Hellboy comic books, respectively) and recontextualizing in bold new ways. By not only considering the work itself, but also the themes and the ways in which the metatext surrounding the work has changed since, del Toro is able to craft cinematic versions of these films that feel not only like an exciting transformation narratively, but one that is in active conversation with the bodies of work that have come before it.

Frankenstein is not only not an exception to this trend from the filmmaker, but it may be his boldest reinvention yet. In taking on the sum total of Frankenstein’s cultural footprint from across the last two centuries of literature and media, Guillermo del Toro’s film delivers a magnum opus that provides not only a meaningful epitaph but also a powerful, reinvigorating catharsis. It absolutely rules, and I adored it.

RGM GRADE

(A)

See Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein as big and loud as you possibly can; it is among the best films of the year, a cinematic experience I am not soon to forget.