In the perfect pairing of property and director, Guillermo Del Toro unleashes all his grotesque, gothic energy into a new version of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, which just debuted on Netflix this past weekend.
Oscar Isaac plays Baron Victor Frankenstein, who becomes obsessed with the idea of defeating death and reanimating a corpse back to life. Under the patronage of wealthy arms dealer Henrich Harlander (Christoph Waltz), whose niece Elizabeth (Mia Goth) is marrying Victor’s brother William (Felix Kammerer), Victor sets about conducting his experiments. Jacob Elordi plays The Creature, who is the result of Victor’s experimentation. Both Isaac and Elordi do a fantastic job and carry their respective sections of the movie. The movie is divided into two main parts, as Victor and then the Creature recount their stories to Danish naval captain Anderson (Lars Mikkelsen) in the Arctic. Isaac showcases Victor’s obsession and how it grows increasingly manic, eventually costing him everything. In true Del Toro fashion, Elordi draws in tons of sympathy as The Creature, especially in the segment where he befriends a blind old man (David Bradley) and learns how to read and speak. His fearsome power is still on display, though, and there are some brutal sequences of The Creature unleashing his rage and strength to annihilate those in his way. The rest of the supporting cast is excellent, although I wish there had been a bit more development for Mia Goth’s Elizabeth. She plays a pivotal role in the lives of both Victor and the Creature, but it feels like there could have been more scenes fleshing out those relationships, and the result of her story feels a bit rushed. Christoph Waltz is excellent as always and brings a mix of upbeat, almost mischievous encouragement that can switch to threatening in an instant.
Guillermo Del Toro has been a master of gothic settings and atmosphere, and it practically oozes out of the screen in Frankenstein. The locations are esquistely designed and feature tons of details, with Victor’s abandoned water tower being the standout with it’s forboding height, massive windows and horrific decorative elements. The devices and gadgets used in Victor’s experiments are also expertly designed, and while similar to other Frankenstein adaptations, they have their own distinct look as well. The costume design is also a highlight, especially for Mia Goth, who pulls double duty as Alma Frankenstein and wears vibrant red dresses in the primarily white setting of the Frankenstein manor. Elizabeth’s dresses are all distinct and reminiscent of things like peacocks. The Creature’s coat is a simple design, but the way it becomes more ragged the longer his chase against Victor goes on makes his already fearsome appearance scarier. The Creature’s look is also familiar but unique to his movie, evoking a resemblance to The Engineers from Prometheus initially, while retaining the stitched appearance and mismatched skin that people have come to expect from Frankenstein’s monster. Elordi’s formidable height also significantly contributes to the unnatural, terrifying nature of The Creature. Del Toro doesn’t skimp on the gruesome grotesqueries either, with some vicious kills by The Creature and Victor’s experiments leading up The Creature’s creation being macabre abominations, like a half torso he reanimates to try and prove the worth of his research to a board of prestigious surgeons at his medical school or Victor cleaning up all the leftover scraps from all the bodies he disassembled to piece together his Creature.
Frankenstein feels like something Del Toro has been building towards throughout his entire career, and all the elements he has used expertly in his previous films, such as a sumptuous Gothic atmosphere, grotesque violence, and sympathetic monsters, all come together spectacularly for Frankenstein. This is one of the best adaptations of Shelley’s iconic classic and another incredible entry in Del Toro’s filmography.
