Book adaptations are always subject to certain scrutiny; too faithful and people bemoan a lack of originality, deviate too much and book purists grab pitchforks. Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein is a tale of generational trauma, of cruel, absent creators and the wounds they inflict. It’s a very humanistic take on Shelley’s seminal novel.
In this adaptation, Frankenstein’s father Leopold (Charles Dance) is given a more central role. He’s a cold man, barren of love and affection, marrying for wealth and reproducing for lineage. Under the tyranny of Leopold, Frankenstein and his mother Claire (Mia Goth) become close. She’s all he has in their lonely world, and when she dies during childbirth, his pain is unbearable. He deals with his wound the only way he knows how, with anger and obsession. Frankenstein (Oscar Isaac) becomes fixated with transcending death, pouring himself into his work and the butchering of cadavers. His work gets the attention of Harlander (Christoph Waltz), who funds his work in exchange for a mysterious favour Frankenstein must repay in the future.
Frankenstein gets his brother William (Felix Kammerer) to help him build the laboratory of his dreams, and while William is distracted with this endeavour, Frankenstein takes the opportunity to spend more time with William’s enchanting fiancé Elizabeth (Mia Goth). This is of course quite a diversion from the source material, as William was always a young boy, while Elizabeth was betrothed to Frankenstein, not William. She is more than mere object in del Toro’s version of the tale. The very first thing Elizabeth speaks passionately on is her hate for the Crimean war and what it has done to young men, men who are forced to fight in a war they might not believe in and forced to die for ideals that don’t even belong to them. This hatred shapes her disgust for Frankenstein’s work, as he builds the Creature from bodies of the young men that have washed up on shore, mutilating their fallen bodies without a care for their humanity.
Isaac is pitch perfect as Frankenstein. His arrogant, maniacal ways are constantly on display, especially in the way he covets Elizabeth just because he can. The casualness in the way he assesses human beings, discounting their humanity while harvesting their flesh – his ambition drives him to lengths that transgress the laws of nature. He becomes a creator without an understanding of what it means to create, to nurture, to love. His cruelty to the Creature (Jacob Elordi) is frankly difficult to watch, as Isaac makes Frankenstein’s disgust and hate so palpable and potent. Everything he loathed about his father, he becomes.
I really adore Elordi’s take on the Creature. His physicality is fantastic, the way he stumbles about like a child still getting used to his limbs, the constant desire for love reflected in his eyes as he reaches out for Frankenstein, only to be rebuffed over and over again. The only language between them is pain, and while the Creature does experience kindness from a blind man (David Bradley), he observes the inevitable nature of violence inherent to all living things. Man hands on misery to man – is that the role we must play?
My main gripe with the characterisation of the Creature is that this adaptation has too much sympathy for him and humanizes him a bit too much. This choice renders Frankenstein even more villainous in comparison to Shelley’s text. It feels too simplistic to turn him into a monster, when in Shelley’s novel he was a scared young man who flew too close to the sun and couldn’t deal with the consequences. The Creature’s turn to violence is necessary and is a direct result of Frankenstein’s abandonment. However, in del Toro’s version the Creature only kills in self-defense, and without the Creature’s scorched earth retaliation the whole commentary on man’s hubris and our responsibility as creators doesn’t feel as potent.
Elizabeth’s relationship with the Creature is also a little unfathomable. I understand why Elizabeth would feel a connection with him – they both exist in the peripheries of society and are treated as objects in their individual ways – however, the movie doesn’t do enough legwork for her ardent display of desire and love to be comprehensible.
The costume and production design is immaculate: the Creature’s design a part of Elizabeth’s dress, red and green as symbolic motifs for creation, that massive set piece of a ship trapped in the icy sea – every single detail is honestly breathtaking stuff. The atmosphere is a tad lacking at times despite these incredible sets, mainly because the way it’s shot feels more like a stage play than a film. Still, there are some gorgeous shots we’ll all be talking about for quite some time.
While I feel that some of the changes do dilute the power of Shelley’s tale, I appreciate del Toro’s vision. He took a story about the hate, violence and destruction inherent to mankind and made it about love and forgiveness. Frankenstein’s Creature becomes more human than monster because he chooses to be. In a world where it can feel that God is distant and apathetic, maybe the best choice we can make is to be the opposite. To choose love and send charity out into the hideous world, even if it may not deserve it.
REVIEW SCORE: 4/5
