This is the movie Guillermo del Toro was born to make. He first read Mary Shelley’s novel as a boy and it has informed everything he has done since then. Del Toro admits that he only started working on a finished screenplay several years ago, but he has thought about the whys and wherefores of this enduring saga for most of his life.
The end result is a film made by a master of cinematic storytelling. When I first saw it at the Telluride Film Festival over Labor Day Weekend I thought it was great but too long. Watching it again with my students at USC last week I appreciated it even more, and the extreme length didn’t bother me so much. (A little trimming wouldn’t hurt, but that’s true of almost every film I see.)
For Guillermo, the Frankenstein story is a tale of fathers and sons and forgiveness. Seen in that light it is uncommonly powerful, as it builds to a resolution that is both satisfying and inevitable.
Victor Frankenstein is every inch his father’s son: a brilliant doctor who has brought an inanimate figure to life but incurs the wrath and ridicule of his teachers and peers. He determines to take his experiment one step farther, harvesting the brain and body parts he needs from a nearby battlefield. No argument and no individual can deter him from his goal. He is willing to risk everything in order to play God. He cannot predict the damage he will do to people he cares about, let alone himself, along the way.
Del Toro has divided his narrative into chapters. The first is a Prelude set aboard a ship encased in ice on its way to the North Pole. We hear the rest of the story as told to the beleaguered ship’s captain by Victor Frankenstein, who has been hoisted aboard from the ice, where he has been pursued by a strange, undefinable monster. Finally, we learn the same story from the Creature’s point of view. The director has rewritten Mary Shelley but melded his concepts with hers. Yes, there is a blind man, as in Bride of Frankenstein, and an innocent girl who immediately relates to the so-called monster, as he does to her.
Every actor is well-chosen. The supporting players (David Bradley as the blind man, Lars Mikkelsen as the ship’s captain) are seamlessly woven into the fabric of the film. Christoph Waltz stakes his turf in his own inimitable fashion, as Victor Frankenstein’s backer, adding a dash of levity to the bittersweet proceedings. Oscar Isaac was an inspired choice to lead the film, and no one is better suited to play his imposing, imperious father than Charles Dance. As for relative newcomer Jacob Elordi, he manages to convey a wide range of emotions as the creature who inspires curiosity, fear, and ultimately sympathy.
Cinematographer Dan Laustsen, production designer Tamara Deverell, editor Evan Schiff, and the brilliant composer Alexandre Desplat support del Toro’s vision for this epic story. It’s no surprise to learn that they have all worked with him before. The director makes sparing use of CGI and spent much of his budget on practical sets, including a full-sized sailing ship, which adds to the tangible feeling of each new setting as the drama unfolds.
James Whale’s 1931 Frankenstein remains the classic it has always been, but Guillermo Del Toro’s Frankenstein deserves to be absorbed and celebrated right alongside it.
