Guillermo del Toro’s ‘Frankenstein’ Is a Grandly Monstrous Reimagining of Mary Shelley’s Classic Tale

Alci Rengifo

Part of the timeless brilliance of Mary Shelley’s 1818 novel “Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus,” is how all the fame goes to its monster. Hollywood has, of course, contributed to this aspect of its pop culture presence. The Creature gets more attention than the real monster of the tale, his creator Victor Frankenstein. Guillermo del Toro wonderfully refocuses the narrative in his grand, visually overwhelming “Frankenstein.” Long a passion project of the acclaimed Mexican auteur, del Toro’s take on the classic story is so rich it instantly merits a second viewing. He stays true to most of the novel while going in new directions that make the plot his own. His distinctive style is everywhere, even as he nods at the work’s Romantic era origins. The end result is a stirring tale of a man playing at God and failing miserably.

While del Toro moves the timeline a bit further up to 1857, he begins the movie faithfully enough to the novel’s first chapter by opening in the Arctic. An expedition led by Captain Anderson (Lars Mikkelsen) finds a weak and dying Dr. Victor Frankenstein (Oscar Isaac) freezing in the glacial landscape. When the ship’s crew tries to rescue him, a threatening figure in rags attacks, demanding Frankenstein be turned over to him. Once back inside the ship, Anderson listens to Frankenstein as he tells his story, which begins in England where his childhood was marked by a domineering father and loving mother. The mother dies giving birth to a new son, William, and Victor vows to conquer death. As a grown man he becomes a doctor but is made a pariah at the Royal College of Medicine for his wild theories about reanimating life. Then, a charismatic arms dealer, Herr Harlander (Christoph Waltz), offers to help Victor in his quest. Harlander has a niece, Elizabeth (Mia Goth), who happens to be engaged to a now grown William (Felix Kammerer). Victor does indeed put together his creation, strewn together from various corpses. The resulting being (Jacob Elordi) comes to life during a lightning storm but will soon become Victor’s eternal nightmare.

There is no reason for del Toro not to have free reign with this material. The most famous “Frankenstein,” James Whale’s 1931 version, is nowhere near faithful to the book and was adapted from a stage play. Kenneth Branagh’s 1994 take is an overwrought guilty pleasure that stuck closer to the text, yet still played it safe by making the doctor a sympathetic victim of good intentions. Del Toro is going back to both Shelley and her own inspiration in John Milton’s “Paradise Lost.” In this “Frankenstein,” Victor is overtaken by pure vanity and ambition. Giving life to the Creature is at first exhilarating, infusing the man with the feeling of becoming a god. When he grows tired of his creation’s slower development, while keeping him chained in the lower regions of his estate, Victor morphs into an abusive tyrant. It is like a deity growing enraged at the imperfection of what he has wrought. He is so arrogant as to think it will be an easy fix to just set the place afire and leave the Creature to die. Shelley wrote her novel at a time when Europe was still under the influence of the Enlightenment while the Romantics were celebrating sensations and freedom. Scholars have long associated the Creature’s eventual, destructive rebellion with the French Revolution, which cast a major influence over the world that formed Shelley and her cohorts.

The themes come across so strongly because del Toro enhances them with his own reimagining of the plot. It becomes more poignant and tragically human than past movie adaptations. By changing Elizabeth into William’s fiancé, and not keeping her as Victor’s adopted sister, she is set as a more intriguing figure. Del Toro rewrites her as a woman interested in science who doesn’t flinch when walking into Victor’s laboratory and seeing a corpse with its back cut open. Victor falls in love with her yet instead of going for the easy melodrama of two brothers fighting over the same woman, del Toro prefers to focus on how the doctor’s character ruins his chances with a good match. Elizabeth sees through him, and when she finds the chained Creature in his estate, she confirms Victor has become a blind megalomaniac. This is a filmmaker keenly aware that the real monsters rarely look the part. Elizabeth sympathizes with the Creature almost to the point of attraction, with hints of affection overcoming appearances similar to del Toro’s “The Shape of Water,” though much darker and melancholy. It is surprising del Toro rarely ventures into this kind of Gothic Victorian terrain more often. He is so much at home in it as proven with 2015’s gorgeous and riveting “Crimson Peak,” which now feels like a test run for this movie. 

The performances are heartfelt and at times operatic in the best way. Oscar Isaac is a magnificent, doomed ego. However, much of the attention will no doubt go to Jacob Elordi. After “Euphoria” the actor has mostly been cast in roles designed to bank off his chiseled jock looks, as when he played Elvis in Sofia Coppola’s “Priscilla.” Playing Frankenstein’s monster means taking on a role most famously inhabited by Boris Karloff in the 1931 classic. Branagh’s version had no less a star than Robert De Niro under the stitched makeup. Elordi is a creature to rank with the best. Del Toro designs a look for his monster that is almost ghostly and pale, evoking the chill of a corpse. Elordi is a towering figure reduced to being childlike when the lightning first brings him to life and all surroundings and language are unfamiliar. He is almost pitiful when abused by Frankenstein. Fractured language that would be silly with a bad performance becomes poignant in the way Elordi captures the Creature’s evolution through a section taken from the novel, when he tries to befriend a farming family, only to be banished after discovering the harsh violence of the world. There is genuine pain and rage in his chase after Frankenstein, like Satan in “Paradise Lost” raging at his creator. 

Much of del Toro’s fame comes from his marriage of visual style and story. “Frankenstein” is a massive tapestry of stunning production design, cinematography by Dan Laustsen that at times evokes Romantic era paintings, and a lush score by Alexandre Desplat that aims for emotional resonance and not horror movie screeches.  Shelley never even describes in detail how Frankenstein made the monster, so del Toro indulges in his signature use of anatomical close-ups and makeup, showing in detail how Victor goes about sawing body parts or adjusting bones and hand muscles. Part of what makes del Toro such a master of horror is that he never goes for the easy jump scares. The implications of the story and world are more unsettling. The violence in this movie can get visceral yet never shallow. When the Creature challenges Frankenstein to place a stick of dynamite in his hands, it is to prove that nothing can stop the reckoning he is owed. Bloodshed is used to eloquently express how unjust and cruel the world can be, especially because it is run by the worst monsters of all, us.

In this spirit, the ending of “Frankenstein” becomes more eloquent and moving than if del Toro had opted for some big action blow out. It is a closing as reflective as the final moments in one of his early great films, “The Devil’s Backbone.” Del Toro wants to entertain us by telling a genuine story. Right before the end credits he includes a quote from the great Romantic poet Lord Byron, nodding again at the enduring power of the source material and its times. So many other productions spend vast amounts of content that offer little in terms of genuine enrichment. This director may be famous for his monsters, but he has always been an artist willing to take risks with stories loaded with personal meaning or history, like “Pan’s Labyrinth” or “Pinocchio.” Some filmmakers wait decades to make a passion project and somehow fumble. “Frankenstein” is a master craftsman rejuvenating a true classic with affection and great imagination in every frame. 

“Frankenstein” releases Oct. 17 in select theaters and begins streaming Nov. 7 on Netflix.