Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein Images<\/p>\n
Pretty much everyone knows the story of Frankenstein, and del Toro \u2013 who\u2019s been trying to get a movie based on the iconic novel made<\/a> for at least 20 years \u2013 doesn\u2019t deviate from Mary Shelley\u2019s work in any way that anyone but fans of the OG would notice. Some characters are missing, others are added, but the bones of the story remain intact: Man makes monster, man rejects monster, monster gets pissed off. But more than just intact, these bones are also seemingly pulled from (carved out of?) Dr. Frankenstein\u2019s choicest picks, his finest specimens, because this iteration of Frankenstein is, like its Creature, a beautiful, haunting thing through which classic themes are made to feel fresh and new.<\/p>\n Not only is Victor Frankenstein (Oscar Isaac) a monster for much of the film\u2019s runtime \u2013 cue everyone\u2019s favorite \u201cwho\u2019s the real monster?\u201d line \u2013 but he\u2019s a monster who was spawned by a monster, his stringent and abusive father Leopold (played by Charles Dance, who at this point in his career is destined to play the same miserable asshole over and over again). So of course that generational pain continues to rear its ugly head \u2013 or perhaps in this case not so ugly \u2013 when Victor brings life to his creature, played by a scarred yet still movie-star-handsome Jacob Elordi.<\/p>\n This iteration of Frankenstein is, like its Creature, a beautiful, haunting thing through which classic themes are made to feel fresh and new.<\/p>\n Elordi is a marvel here (and his Creature exhibits Marvel-esque superhuman powers, which is fun), belying his turns as bad guys or unsympathetic characters in titles like Euphoria, Priscilla, and Saltburn. No, while the Creature in GDT\u2019s Frankenstein will mess you up if need be \u2013 and does in fact mess up man and beast alike in spectacular fashion \u2013 del Toro writes him and Elordi plays him in the finest Karloffian vein, a sympathetic, sad-sack SOB who just wants a friend. That the actor also seems to be channeling the body work of GDT regular and creature-player extraordinaire Doug Jones only accentuates how different Elordi\u2019s Creature is from past incarnations. He pivots his body, twists his waist, leans in and back, and cocks his head in such a way as to always remind us that, after all, the Creature\u2019s body is actually a series of bodies that are still getting used to each other.<\/p>\n Isaac as Victor, on the other hand, runs the risk of becoming too unlikable at times. When his Creature is born, there are genuine moments of affection between the two. But the newborn\u2019s apparent inability to evolve and grow \u2013 in terms of speech, he can\u2019t get any further than saying \u201cVict-or\u201d over and over again \u2013 frustrates the genius, and frankly, dickish doctor. Just as his father did before him, Victor punishes his child rather than nurtures him. And so the cycle continues, with the Creature never even having a chance at normalcy, his appearance notwithstanding. But the result is that Isaac\u2019s Victor very nearly becomes the film\u2019s villain, which perhaps isn\u2019t a new concept in the Frankenstein mythos, but occasionally works against the film in the character\u2019s darkest moments. (Colin Clive, who played the mad doctor opposite Boris Karloff\u2019s monster, was always sympathetic, mind you, even when he was operating at peak Looney Tunes<\/a>.)<\/p>\n And then there\u2019s Mia Goth, who brings to the Elizabeth Harlander character an otherworldliness that has sort of become a trademark for the MaXXXine and Suspiria actress. Named Elizabeth Lavenza in the book, the character is adopted into the Frankenstein household and eventually marries Victor, but in this version she\u2019s engaged to Victor\u2019s brother William (All Quiet on the Western Front\u2019s Felix Kammerer). William usually doesn\u2019t make it to adulthood when he\u2019s present in a Frankenstein story, falling victim to the Creature in a savage act of revenge. But again, del Toro tweaks and twists these plot elements, with William in the way of Victor\u2019s traditional love interest while also giving Elizabeth an uncle in the person of Christoph Waltz\u2019s Heinrich Harlander. And while Waltz is typically a welcome addition to any film, his character \u2013 a benefactor who pays for Victor\u2019s experiments \u2013 ultimately doesn\u2019t add much at all here beyond helping to make the film slightly longer than it needs to be.<\/p>\n Frankenstein is full of blood and gore and dismembered limbs and ripped-off jaws and crunched skulls, but it\u2019s not a horror movie. Like the director\u2019s 2015 Gothic romance Crimson Peak, this is a film that feels big, engulfing the viewer in a world where a sad wife\u2019s deep-red gown is set against the stark backdrop of a foreboding castle. It\u2019s a place where the city streets run red with slaughterhouse blood, where a frozen battlefield is marked by a horse covered in ice, still in mid-gallop with its rider astride. And yet at the same time, the beauty of creation itself is infectious, as when Elordi\u2019s Creature first experiences the sun. As Vict-or tells him, \u201cSun is life.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/a>Mia Goth brings her trademark otherworldliness to the Elizabeth Harlander character.<\/p>\n