Prelude: Once upon a time, a boy watched a movie. In it, a monster with bolts in his head and a shuffling gate was created by a man. When the boy gazed upon “the creature,” however, as the film’s characters called this sewn-together colossus, he did not see a monster onscreen. The child saw himself. The real fiends were the ones who perverted science, who attacked this misunderstood giant out of fear, who branded him as something unholy and unworthy to exist, who gave him life but didn’t give him love. The creature was a misfit. One who threw a little girl into a lake, but still.
The boy grew to be a man. He made his own movies, crafted his own creatures, told his own stories. People flocked to see them. He was rewarded with fame, fanatics, and a few awards. But that tale of someone brought into a world that treated him with cruelty and contempt never left him. The more he sought out that film’s source materials and interpretations and copycats, the stronger was his urge to tell his version of the story. Given a chance — and perhaps a hefty budget from a streaming service — he hoped to bring his creation to life. He would show the world the reflection he saw onscreen so many years ago.
Mary Shelley’s Gothic novel Frankenstein has inspired scores of similar works and flattering imitations since its publication in 1818, and filmmakers ranging from Thomas Edison (he produced a short adaptation in 1910 that, for many years, had been believed to be lost) to Kenneth Branagh have taken a stab at the author’s tale of a modern Prometheus. For Guillermo del Toro, seeing the 1931 version starring Boris Karloff was the genesis of his own career. The Shape of Water writer-director has borrowed body parts from Shelley’s book and Universal’s iconic horror opus for much of his own back catalog, and has long talked about attempting his particular spin on the story of gods and monsters in which “only a monster would play God.”
Now, the Oscar winner has finally done it, and though the song remains much the same — a laboratory, an experiment, violence, revenge, fire = bad! — the symphonic arrangement and the minor-chord variations are 100 percent his. Personal doesn’t begin to describe it, nor does passionate. It’s neither del Toro’s best nor his worst, but this feels like the movie he was born to make, and the one he would have died trying to get done.
He’s drawing from a lot from Shelley’s tome, naturally, with vignettes in the icy terrain of “the farthermost north” and long, existential soliloquies drawn directly from the book. You can see the DNA of James Whale’s Karloff extravaganza, its 1935 sequel Bride of Frankenstein (minus the tongue-in-cheek camp), and the Universal horror stable as a whole. Ditto the Hammer Studios output of the 1950s and ’60s, Bernie Wrightson’s definitive illustrations of the Creature, oodles of Gothic literature, Roger Corman’s Poe pictures, and Mario Bava’s retina-searing color creep shows. Oscar Isaac‘s Victor Frankenstein is part 18th-century dandy and part swaggering Swinging Sixties rock star, as if Lord Byron had been genetically spliced with Brian Jones. The above-and-beyond production design and costumes are filled with both period-appropriate lushness and totally idiosyncratic touches, like sarcophagi that showcase the naked faces of the dead and several flowing gowns that resemble full-length veils. There are more vibrant reds and glowing greens on heaven and earth here than are dreamed of in your typical color palette.
But for all its stylistic brio and an overall mesmerizing look, in which even throwaway visuals (like the icy corpse of a solider frozen to his battlefield steed) sear themselves into your memory, Frankenstein remains the simple, direct story of a man and his nonbiological offspring. And though you can see glimpses of the auteur in Isaac’s crazed, single-minded creator, chasing a dream into the mouth of madness, it’s clear that del Toro’s sympathies are with the Creature. This version of Frankenstein’s monster enters the world as a frightened newborn babe, scared and curious and desperate for human affection. He later becomes a patchwork, porcelain angel of vengeance.
The director has said that he cast Australian actor Jacob Elordi because of his eyes, and you can totally understand the instinct once you see how the star of Euphoria and Saltburn leans into wordless expressions of woundedness and rage. When the Creature is able to articulate his longings — like Shelley’s O.G. monstrosity, he becomes an eloquent outcast in an endless existential-crisis loop — Elordi affects a deep, guttural growl and a posture that suggests shame, resentment, and a readiness to strike. Yet there’s always a childlike sense to both his anger and his neediness, having been denied the milk of human kindness by his maker. He just wants to be loved by his father figure. Is that so wrong? If you brought me into this world, the Creature implores, why reject me? Have I not been cast in your image?
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Victor, it should be said, is also the product of bad parenting — long flashbacks attest to Leopold Frankenstein (Charles Dance) being a shit dad to young Frankenstein (Christian Convery) — and having achieved his goal of creating life from nothingness, the scientist loses interest in, and patience with, the end result. He’s abusive, intolerant, incapable of breaking the cycle. The Creature, in turn, suffers both from being an “abomination” of nature and from a lack of nurturing. Only Elizabeth (Mia Goth, killing it) shows interest in, not to mention empathy toward, the being chained up in the Gothic castle’s catacombs. Curiosity and possibly even lust play into their first encounter; part of the welcome complexity between this pale-skinned woman of substance and this tall, equally alabaster, formerly dead drink of water is the ambiguity in their initial interactions. Elizabeth may be every bit the intellectual equal of Victor, who pines for her, and she may have promised her hand in marriage to Victor’s beta brother, William (Felix Kammerer). Yet her heart lies with the poor, nameless man stuck in the basement. Only she sees his humanity.
So does del Toro, of course, and it’s why his Frankenstein is such a vital addition to the canon of creature features based around Shelley’s macabre magnum opus. A wise man once said that it’s a filmmaker’s job to make you care about their obsessions. That’s been accomplished here. And it’s also, like so much great work born from a need to put into images what can’t only be put into words, a line-blurring mix of autobiography and artistry. Movies, though they may be so often an accumulation of anguish, are dear to many of us, and we will defend them. Del Toro understands this, and while he keeps the flame of such cinephilia alive and burning, he also knows that unless you use the medium to express something — to do more than simply present the sum of stylistic fixations without substance — capital-F Film perishes. Frankenstein keeps such notions alive. (Aliiiiive!). The boy who saw that Karloff movie would be proud of the man who made it. He’d love this thing to death.
From Rolling Stone US
