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.
