What makes the monster, and what makes a man?
Frankenstein, a sumptuous visual masterpiece showing on Netflix is created by Oscar-winning director Guillermo del Toro. He has taken Gothic theatre and turned into film.
Frankenstein is a grand, opulent, violent, but also delicate story based on Mary Shelley’s iconic novel. Del Toro makes it feel like an epic musical without the characters singing the lines.
The film opens on a dark, cold night. Sailors, their ship bound by ice, go out to rescue a man dying out on the tundra. Baron Victor Frankenstein is fleeing from his own creation. He tells his tale of a mad genius, his pursuit to conquer death.
His monster, called the Creature (be aware that the monster is not named Frankenstein, a common mistake), smashes through the cabin doors, and so, we get to hear both perspectives.
The emotional arch feels deeply familiar, the structure as well, like a three-act play off Broadway: there is “I want”, an expression of longing, then the “transformation”, a radical shift in fate. Next is a conflict with the world — there is rejection, then a return or reinvention and finally, resolution.
Del Toro flips the lead between Victor and the Creature. Victor Frankenstein is played by Oscar Isaac, a brittle and brilliant man whose ambition curdles into cruelty.
Jacob Elordi plays the Creature, all towering anguish and raw grace. He has gone from teenage heartthrob roles like The Kissing Booth to darker, stranger work like Saltburn, and here he gives an astonishing physical performance, which is innocent and brutal.
Both Victor and the Creature suffer from their own hubris. Both are hungry for meaning and are abandoned by what they love most.
Del Toro exaggerates emotion like a massive stage production. The set, incredible costume and the use of light are opulent, expressive and symbolic. The visual splendour results from Del Toro’s insistence that each frame becomes a moving painting.
I audibly gasped at how beautiful some scenes were, like the introduction of Mia Goth’s Elizabeth, whose plume of blue feathers around her face, when holding a skull, is breathtaking.
Del Toro says that when he began the screenplay, he worked “like a high school student on a date” and made a playlist. Every scene had its own music. He sees the rhythm in dialogue and in the emotional build. He treats cinematography as if it is conducting an entire world.
He describes the monster as the film’s bull’s eye. His creatures always feel like they come from the same universe (like The Shape of Water or Pan’s Labyrinth). He has built his entire career on his love for finding humanity in the beast. He has wanted to make Frankenstein for years.
This commitment to visual masterpiece is also the downfall for some. Critics call the film a beautiful façade with not enough substance. Goth’s Elizabeth is mentioned as window dressing. She is striking and ethereal, with immaculate costumes and a soft presence, but some feel she deserved more story.
It is also not part of the original story. Del Toro loves to add some romance, a woman falling in love with a monster. But he said she sees the Creature as straight from God. Through his actions, which are incredibly violent… perhaps the wrath of God?
Still, as a final spooky-season watch before Christmas arrives, this film is a baroque feast. Don’t watch it with your children.
