FRANKENSTEIN (2025)*** - BFI London Film Festival 2025 - Day 10

Guillermo Del Toro has been waiting all his life to bring FRANKENSTEIN to the screen, and as a result this film almost feels derivative of works that he made in preparation for this, such as CRIMSON PEAK.  The resulting film is wonderful to look at - a true spectacle - and worth seeing on the big screen rather than Netflix.  But other than a handful of moments, it isn’t a film that ripped my heart out, as this story should.

Oscar Isaac (STAR WARS’ Poe Dameron) stars as Victor Frankenstein, the spoiled rich aristocrat who studies medicine precisely to succeed where his hated father failed, in restoring the dead to life.  He walks around 19th Century Europe like Marc Bolan, all Cuban heels and flared trousers and a coquettishly angled fedora.  He creates a lab with the help of his guileless but practical little brother William (Felix Kammerer - ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT) and the unending funding of Christoph Waltz’ oleaginous and slippery Harlander. Frankenstein’s problem is that he is unimpressed with the mental capacity of his monster and so accords it no humanity. He cannot see that it’s just a child in need of patience and education.  He becomes as brutal and unyielding a parent as his own father was to him.  The monster and castle are torched, but as we know, the monster is unkillable.

In the second half of the film we see the story from the monster’s eyes. Jacob Elordi plays him as a gentle and melancholy giant, with an odd Yorkshire accent that presumably reflects Elordi’s preparation to play Heathcliff in Emerald Fennell’s forthcoming WUTHERING HEIGHTS.  The monster is a hurt brooding emo teenager, brought to literacy by a kindly blind man, and lonely in his eternal purgatory.  He seeks out Victor to make him a mate and in doing so rekindles the mutual attraction with Victor’s compassionate sister-in-law to be, Elizabeth (Mia Goth). It’s a mutual attraction that makes Victor jealous.

As the film ends we are back on the Danish polar explorer marooned in ice, and we have a reconciliation of sorts between hard-hearted father and hurt son.  In an adaptation worth its salt this should have moved me to tears. It did not.  Even the scenes with David  Bradley’s old man, while sweet, didn’t truly get to me.  Only the scenes between Goth and Elordi carried any emotional weight. 

And so, while this film looked absolutely stunning, I didn’t capture my heart. I loved watching it and luxuriating in its beautiful sets and costumes but it won’t stay with me. I think the problem may well be that the exaggerated costumes and production design actually got in the way of me connecting with it emotionally. I think the beautiful and brilliant artifice was the problem.

FRANKENSTEIN has a running time of 149 minutes and is rated R. It played Venice, Busan, Toronto and London. It will be released on the internet on November 7th.

GOOD GRIEF**

An artist turned househusband loses his apparently rich and loving spouse in a car crash on Christmas Eve. Over the next year he grieves with the help of his two best friends: an earnest art gallerist and a flaky creative with an problematic relationship with commitment and alcohol.  On the anniversary of the death they go to Paris for a healing weekend of indulgence and honesty.  The artist becomes an artist again. The addict gets sober. The nice gallerist doesn't grow because I guess he doesn't need to?  

The film is not funny. I don't think it's actually meant to be but the fact that it's written by, directed by and stars Schitt's Creek's Dan Levy is likely to raise some expectations in the audience. This wouldn't matter if the film worked as an emotional exploration of grief - after all, that's purportedly its aim. I don't think the writing is insightful enough or moving enough for that. Instead what we have are some very well-dressed moving around beautifully appointed houses having fairly superficial conversations. There is no actual peril - neither financial, nor emotional - and one could argue that the addiction story is not given the respect it deserves either. I remain convinced that Dan Levy is missing his true story as an interior designer. 

GOOD GRIEF is rated R and has a running time of 100 minutes. It was released on Netflix. 

CHICKEN RUN: THE DAWN OF THE NUGGET***** - BFI London Film Festival 2023 - Day 11

CHICKEN RUN: THE DAWN OF THE NUGGET is an absolute delight and a worthy sequel to the beloved first film. It has everything you want from a family adventure comedy - verbal, visual and physical humour; beautifully executed action set-pieces; characters you actually care about; and an uplifting message about caring about your community and female empowerment.

As the film opens, we see our liberated chickens living the good life in a chicken version of The Shire. Our hero and heroine Rocky and Ginger have a lovely baby daughter, Molly, who seems to have a spirit of adventure that her mother at least is eager to suppress.  They are so happy, and the world so unsafe, why leave their idyllic island?  All of this changes when Molly runs away to an apparently bucolic chicken fantasy land only to discover that it's an horrific factory designed to make chickens docile so that they make tastier nuggets. And so, after the escape movie if the original, we now get a heist movie, as Ginger Rocky and their friends have to break IN to the chicken farm to liberate their daughter. 

The resulting film is beautiful, smart, imaginative and endless fun. I wouldn't change a single stop-motion frame. It was wonderful to be back in the company of old friends, if newly (and controversially) voiced.  Bella Ramsay (The Last of Us) is wonderfully courageous and earnest as Molly and I particularly loved her rogueish rat uncles voiced by Romesh Ranganathan and Daniel Mays. But most of all it was wonderful to see the cine-literate team behind this film reference and re-imagine so many heist movie and evil lair tropes - not least British ones! - with just the right amount of mischief and irreverence.  We had a wonderful time, and our lovely youngsters were bouncing with delight all the way through. 

CHICKEN RUN: THE DAWN OF THE NUGGET is rated PG and has a running time of 97 minutes. It opens on limited release in UK cinemas on December 8th and then on Netflix globally on December 15th.

GIULLERMO DEL TORO'S PINOCCHIO - BFI London Film Festival 2022 - Day 11

It feels as though the theme of this year’s  BFI London Film Festival is coming to terms with the death of a loved one. Maybe with a side order of humanity versus religio-fascism. If you don’t believe me, remember this is the second film I’ve watched in the last twenty- four hours that takes a children’s story and recasts it with added violence in the midst of early twentieth century European fascism. The result is a film that is strangely full of childish enthusiasm and hope but that does not shy away from the reality of mortality, death and war. Del Toro was straightforward about its agenda when he introduced the film at today’s world premiere: it’s a film about disobedience as a virtue. And as Christoph Waltz said, there’s something worthwhile in a film about a wooden puppet who wants to be a boy, at a time when humans are being made into puppets. 

The film is depicted with the most beautifully rendered stop-motion animation that has texture and vivid colours and the most wondrous attention to detail. Our narrator is Sebastian J Cricket - never referred to with his pejorative nickname. He’s voiced by Ewan MacGregor as a rather vain but ultimately lovely little insect, and he provides much of the comedy of the film. 

We are treated to a prolonged prologue that tells us about the beloved son that Gepetto (David Bradley) lost, and after whom he fashions Pinocchio. One of the themes of the film is that one should never have to change to be loved. The narrative journey of Gepetto is that he has to learn Pinocchio for himself rather than trying to make him a good little Carlo. 

The world around our trio is one of Italy falling into fascism under Mussolini. And we have a lot of fun with innocent Pinocchio mocking "Il Dolce" and inspiring others to disobey laws that are unjust. Gregory Mann gives a sensational voice performance as the puppet - full of energy and fun and heart.  In one of the most moving scenes of the film, Pinocchio passes on the advice given to him by Sebastian - that fathers may say mean things when they fall into despair, but they don’t mean it. As in all totalitarian societies, there is no room for the personal in this Italy and poor little Candlewick (Finn Wolfhard) struggles to be the son his Fascist father wants him to be. 

As with Pixar’s SOUL there’s a fair amount of time spent in the afterlife, or underworld or whatever you’d like to call it. And this is a subtly radical world insofar as it shows that the Catholic Church is quiescent to fascism. The imperative to obey moves easily from Church to State in this film as in UNICORN WARS - also playing in this year's festival. But in Del Toro’s universe it’s the spirits of nature that have real power, and it’s a pagan elemental world that we’re living in. This is depicted in the guise of two feminine powers, both voiced by Tilda Swinto..

So the subject matter is grown-up but as with all the best childrens' films it will appeal to the adults and to the children, who have always been aware of the horrors of this world. As Del Toro said in his introduction, this is fine for children to watch, so long as their parents talk to them about it afterwards.

GIULLERMO DEL TORO'S PINOCCHIO has a running time of 113 minutes. The world premiere is at the BFI London Film Festival 2022. It will be released on December 9th.