^{By: Amanda Guarragi}

“Only monsters play god.”

Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein is a literary work that explores humanity in its darkest form. Through the immorality of reconstructing a creature from bodily remains to cheat death, there’s a grounding level of humanity. 

Unfortunately, death is inevitable. And witnessing death at a young age can shape your perception of it, and the way the world functions around you. The novel focused on finding beauty in the unknown and in the memory of those who have passed on. 

Shelley had encountered her hardships as a woman, and her fascination with how the human body functions. A great loss can alter how the brain works, and the loss of her children changed the trajectory of how she processed life and death. 

She incorporated themes of abandonment, loss, grief and guilt in most of her novels, but Frankenstein is the one that challenges those ideas the most. 

Dr. Frankenstein and the Creature can be seen as a father/son dynamic, which can be interpreted as a parent not being able to understand their child or even having the anxiety of failing them by bringing them into this world. 

In Guillermo Del Toro’s Frankenstein, he explores the characters of Victor (Oscar Isaac) and the Creature (Jacob Elordi) quite thoroughly, more so than any other iteration. 

It can be argued that this is the definitive version because of the tenderness with which he handles the Creature’s story in comparison to Victor’s madness. There’s a balance between the two characters, and one cannot exist without the other. 

Del Toro begins the film with sailors on a snowy escapade stuck in the middle of the ocean. They find an injured Victor in the middle of a snowbank and bring him on the ship. Little did they know that his creation was following him and seeking his revenge. 

The editing plays a major part in the film as Victor retells his story from childhood as the Creature approaches the ship. Then, the story shifts to the perspective of the Creature once he boards the vessel in search of his maker. 

The reason this works is that viewers gain different perspectives on Dr. Frankenstein and the Creature and how they developed their relationship. 

The first half explores Victor’s personality; he wants instant gratification and quick results because he placed a human brain in the Creature’s head. He treats him poorly and doesn’t attempt to teach him how to be a person. He doesn’t see him as a born-again human; instead, he associates him with an animal. 

This allows the audience to feel empathy for the Creature and see how destructive Victor is to himself and to others around him. It also works as an internal battle within Victor, who is plagued by this genius, but has the unceasing need to prove he’s superior to others. The monstrous side of Victor surfaces with the Creature because of his repressed anger in finding perfection.

Elordi’s Creature is the manifestation of a man’s arrogance and lust for power. Victor loses his initial rationalization in recreating life, and the power of playing God overtakes the purity he once had as a boy learning under his father. Instead of Victor using his gift for the right purpose as a doctor, his superiority complex overpowers his logic and has an incessant need to be right.

Del Toro has become a master at world-building and imbuing his creatures with emotional depth. The production design in Frankenstein incorporates Gothic architecture and highlights more Earth tones that ground the madness of its central creator. A reminder that the world is a living, breathing organism, and needs to be treated with tenderness and care. 

Victor’s sister-in-law, Elizabeth (Mia Goth), plays the foil to Dr. Frankenstein’s skewed perception of the world. While he lives within the confines of death and resurrection, Elizabeth gravitates towards the misunderstood and shows great empathy for those who seem helpless. Elizabeth craves to understand humans and the unknown so deeply to protect and advocate for them. Her patience with Elordi’s Creature – although fleeting – makes a deep impact on his learning about humans. 

Much like the Faun in Pan’s Labyrinth or the Amphibian Man in The Shape of Water, del Toro’s work with Jacob Elordi is possibly his best yet. Elordi was given the space by del Toro to play with the physicality of the creature. Even under all that make-up and prosthetics, Elordi’s emotions came through the cracks to deliver one of the most endearing performances of the year. 

Elordi’s movements were those of a newborn, and his childlike wonder at the surrounding objects was truly impressive. Normally, the Creature doesn’t get enough to do compared to Dr. Frankenstein, but Del Toro’s decision to focus the second half on Elordi enhanced the well-known story.

Isaac delivers a powerful performance with a very stern British accent that differs from the accents he typically uses for his other characters. Victor is the main character, but it’s Jacob Elordi’s Creature that steals the show. 

Much like the novel, the Creature fends for himself to carve his own path in the world and learn how to live in society. He adapts quickly and learns from those who do not fear him. 

The Creature has a level of complexity that films before have not quite captured. This iteration has given Victor’s creation the room to grow and understand his place in the world. He is now stuck in a body that does not fully feel like his, and he also didn’t choose to live a life of loneliness. 

Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein is an immersive Gothic story that deepens Mary Shelley’s themes while crafting a compassionate, human narrative that examines the meaning of a soul and the elements that make one pure of heart. It is the definitive adaptation that fans of the original film and text have eagerly awaited.