Review: 'Frankenstein' shows director Guillermo Del Toro at his best, capturing the horror and beauty of Mary Shelley's classic.
We’ve had so many adaptations of Mary Shelley’s classically gothic horror story “Frankenstein” — starting with James Whale’s atmospheric 1931 version — that one wonders what Guillermo Del Toro might do with it.
Then you remember that Del Toro has been telling us, over and over again, why he would be the perfect director now to tell this story of scientific hubris and human frailty — because it contains many of the ideas he’s been playing with for decades, in “Cronos,” “MimIc,” two “Hellboy” movies, “Pan’s Labyrinth,” “Crimson Peak” and “The Shape of Water.”
Del Toro, who directed and wrote the screenplay, frames the story in the Arctic in 1857, on a ship stuck in the ice near the North Pole. The crew soon sees that there’s someone else out there — a haggard, haunted man running for his life. That’s Victor Frankenstein, played by Oscar Isaac, who tells the ship’s captain (Lars Mikkelsen, Mads’ brother) the story of how he got here.
“Victor’s Tale,” as the title card puts it, begins with young Victor (played by Christian Convery) learning medicine and anatomy from his brutal father (Charles Dance). Young Victor is much closer to his mother (Mia Goth), but when she giving birth to Victor’s brother William, Victor becomes more resentful of his father — who, despite his brilliance as a doctor, couldn’t save his wife.
As a young adult, Victor’s experiments with reanimating dead bodies earns him the condemnation of the medical establishment. He does have one admirer, though — the eccentric and rich Harlander (Christoph Waltz), who has conducted similar research in bring the dead back to life, and offers to bankroll Victor’s efforts.
Victor and Harlander scour graveyards and impending hangings to find the right parts they needs to complete Victor’s experiments. Ultimately, he builds his creature (Jacob Elordi) and brings it to life. However, Victor is ill-prepared for what comes next — and reverts to cruel parenting skills he inherited from his father.
In contrast, Harlander’s cousin, Elizabeth (also played by Goth) arrives at the castle, meets the monster and shows it compassion. That makes things worse, and soon Victor’s lab is destroyed and the creature is loose.
Del Toro paces this first 90 minutes with deliberation, building up the period details and unsettling details of Victor’s experiments. This section may feel like it’s dragging a bit, though that may be in comparison to what happens next — when Del Toro forcefully reminds us that for every creator there’s a creation, who has his own tale to tell. When that transition happens, the movie’s energy skyrockets, its purpose of reclaiming Mary Shelley’s story from decades of schlock coming into sharp focus.
I won’t say much about part 2, called “The Creature’s Tale,” other than it sets Victor’s cruelty and the creature’s humanity on a collision course. Oh, and there’s a character, played by David Bradley (Filch from the “Harry Potter” films), whose absence would have prompted riots from film buffs worldwide.
Isaac is compelling as Victor, a brooding and arrogant symbol of humanity’s inability to leave well enough alone, in science and in life. And Goth — so good in the “X”/“Pearl”/“MaXXXine” trilogy — shows us a fragility and tragic goodness that we haven’t seen from her before.
But just as Shelley’s story is about the creature and its creator, this movie comes down to how two creators — Del Toro and Elordi — imbue this creature with life. The make-up designs capture a being that’s evolving in front of our eyes, subtly growing and changing as his indestructible body heals. Elordi works from within to find, or at least search for, the creature’s soul. It’s one of the most brilliant actor-director collaborations in ages, and makes this “Frankenstein” more than the sum of its parts.
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‘Frankenstein’
★★★1/2
Opens Friday, October 24, in theaters; starts streaming Nov. 7 on Netflix. Rated R for bloody violence and grisly images. Running time: 149 minutes.