‘The hunter did not hate the wolf. The wolf did not hate the sheep. But violence felt inevitable between them…’
Aside from A Christmas Carol and Dracula, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein is probably one of the most adapted novels of all time. Each generation has their own iteration of the Frankenstein myth, whether it be the Universal version, Hammer Horror, Andy Warhol, or Kenneth Branagh’s monstrosity. Guillermo del Toro, perhaps the master of taking what is ostensibly a fairy-tale and imbuing it with his own personal brand of darkness and aesthetic ingenuity, feels like the perfect fit for Shelley’s classic novel, having already done his own version of the monster movie with both Pan’s Labyrinth and The Shape of the Water. With great anticipation comes great expectation, however, and while there is much to enjoy in del Toro’s romp through the life of Baron Victor Frankenstein and his feud with his monstrous creation, there are also plenty of missteps…
In this version, Victor (Oscar Isaacs) becomes obsessed with life after death after his mother dies giving birth to him. This monomaniacal fascination leads to the creation of the monster (Jacob Elordi), with Victor having been bankrolled by Henrich Harlander, a wealthy arms manufacturer and new addition to the story having not featured in the source material. Del Toro makes the wise decision to make the character of Elizabeth (Mia Goth) Victor’s sister-in-law rather than his adopted sister and future wife, and the stacked supporting cast also boasts Ralph Ineson, David Bradley and Felix Kammerer.
I went into this version of Frankenstein expecting something broadly similar to the novel. In fact, del Toro’s version is just as unfaithful to Shelley’s vision as all the other film adaptations out there. That being said, the framing device of the ship stuck in the ice is included here (it often isn’t), and this is one of the few versions that allows the monster to be as elegant and loquacious as he is in the book. So, what’s the problem? Well, first of all, I love Isaacs, but his performance is too theatrical here. As with so many of del Toro’s works, his Frankenstein toes the line between camp and horror, and Isaacs doesn’t seem to have a sure footing as to which side of that line he is supposed to be on. Elordi fares better, still managing to deliver a proper ‘performance’ despite being hampered by heavy make up and elaborate prosthetics. As with much of the aesthetics here, the make up looks sensational, but it doesn’t feel real. Perhaps, as with the work of Tim Burton, authenticity isn’t important when the subject matter is so fantastical, but I would have liked the story to feel a little more grounded.
Elsewhere, Bradley is utterly convincing as the kindly old man who briefly befriends the monster, and Dance is suitably severe as Frankenstein’s oppressive father, but Goth, an actor with incredible range and skill, is reduced to a fairly rote damsel-in-distress character here, either that, or a manic-pixie-dream-sister-in-law. Either way, she’s wasted.
Frankenstein is by no stretch of the imagination a bad film, and some of the sequences throughout are breath-taking (the first animation scene in a room full of affronted scientists is an all-timer), but this felt like it had the potential to be the perfect marriage between intellectual property and filmmaker, and in that context, it must go down as a slight disappointment. It’s also too long. Ah well, there’ll be another adaptation along in decade or so, I’m sure.
