Guillermo Del Toro’s 'Frankenstein' Triumphs by Embracing the Source’s Heartbreak

Guillermo Del Toro’s Frankenstein is a breathtaking artistic coup and an exhilarating work, forging a film that feels both profoundly familiar and richly, strangely new from a story the world thought it had exhausted. The film is a spectacular cinematic achievement, successfully creating something almost new and definitely rich and strange out of a story we all thought we knew well.

Del Toro achieves this success by clinging closely to the spirit of the 19th-century source material, though not its precise timeline. While Mary Shelley’s novel was completed in 1818, the film is situated in 1857, several years after the author's death. This Victorian-era setting, one presumes, grounds the tale in trappings more readily identifiable to the contemporary viewer and allows the visionary scientist, Victor Frankenstein (Oscar Isaac), to more fully exploit the potential of electricity in animating his creation.

Crucially, the film’s scenario is thoroughly inspired by the original text. It opens near the novel's conclusion in the Arctic, where the dynamic between creator and creation has inverted into a perpetual hunt. However, the filmmaker expands upon this foundation, creating a tale that is not only jarring and frightening—in the best traditions of the horror genre—but heartbreakingly poignant. Del Toro successfully deepens the humanity first explored by James Whale in his classic 1930s films, Frankenstein and Bride of Frankenstein.

While horror connoisseurs will recognize visual echoes of Whale and the Hammer Frankenstein films, Del Toro avoids relying heavily on mere cinematic admiration. The movie refuses to wink at the audience; instead, it fully commits to the narrative, plunging into all of the philosophical and spiritual implications inherent in Shelley's subtitle, Or, A Modern Prometheus.

Jacob Elordi’s performance as the towering but tragically vulnerable Creature is born into abject misery, physically abused by a human "God" who demands absolute subservience. Once Victor Frankenstein’s creation achieves both sentience and literacy, his true torture begins. He struggles to define his identity and find belonging, condemning himself as an eternal outsider, despised and misunderstood by everyone. Elordi masterfully conveys the Creature’s inherent gentleness, intelligence, and sensitivity—a moment of him tenderly petting a mouse is quietly devastating—while also unleashing the appropriate power and rage.

Oscar Isaac’s portrayal of Victor is defined by a manic, obsessive quality. He is consumed not just by his scientific endeavor but by the drive to convince his peers and family of its righteousness. For him, ordinary ethics are irrelevant when discussing the creation of eternal life. Isaac skillfully inhabits the conventional "mad scientist" territory without ever descending into camp, allowing the audience to understand Victor's motivations without necessarily empathizing with them, which is fitting for the character. The ensemble is rounded out by Christoph Waltz, who delivers one of his most genuinely sympathetic performances as a mentor with ambiguous motives, and Mia Goth, who lives up to her name as the fiancée of Victor's nephew, a woman who appears to share some of her future in-law's morbid preoccupations.

Del Toro's legendary sense of design, realized by his impeccable production and costume teams, including frequent collaborators Tamara Deverell and Kate Hawley, constantly surprises with visual synchronicity. The Creature is a stitched-together composite whose torso resembles merged tectonic plates, a motif echoed in a dress worn by Goth's character, Elizabeth, which features small green islands pressing against each other. The frames are saturated with the director’s signature reds and blacks—Victor’s dream figures, for example, include a crimson winged angel, or possibly a demon—resulting in a visual nightmare that is intoxicatingly beautiful. Alexander Desplat’s score provides an appropriately insistent accompaniment.

Years ago, Del Toro famously told film journalist Edward Douglas that the tragedy of filmmaking was realizing a vision: “I dream I can make the greatest Frankenstein ever, but then if you make it, you’ve made it. Whether it’s great or not, it’s done. You cannot dream about it anymore.” Del Toro can now put those fears to rest; his Frankenstein is assuredly a triumph, not a tragedy, and the director can always dare to dream anew.