REVIEW. FRANKENSTEIN: Guillermo del Toro Transforms Mary Shelley's Gothic Novel into a Stunning, Emotional, Post-Modern Prometheus.

[Mary Shelley] has remained a figure as important in my life as if it was

family... She gave voice to the voiceless and presence to the invisible,

and she showed me that sometimes to talk about monsters we need to

fabricate one of our own... and parables do that for us.

-Guillermo del Toro, 2018 BAFTA's

This is the movie. The one I wait for every year. The film that reminds me why I love cinema, and why movies matter. In a word, Guillermo del Toro's long-awaited Frankenstein is magnificent. Visually stunning. Emotionally powerful. And totally human.

If you know anything about del Toro, none of this should be surprising. His touching acceptance speech (an excerpt from which I included above), when he won the 2018 Best Director BAFTA for The Shape of Water gave a very personal glimpse into what inspires his creative process. In The Shape of Water, the parable del Toro (and co-screenwriter Vanessa Taylor), crafted was not unlike Frankenstein: a mute janitor named Elisa Esposito (Sally Hawkins) who works the nightshift at a secret government laboratory in Baltimore c.1962 finds herself drawn to humanoid amphibian (Doug Jones) that is being kept underwraps for scientific study. Both misfits, Elisa and The Amphibian Man form a bond born of mutual ostracization and societal misunderstanding. Praised for its stunning visuals, fine acting, original score, and cinematography, the movie won four Oscars, including Best Director and Best Picture.

What struck me as del Toro gave his acceptance speech - and his nod to Mary Shelley as the impetus for fascination with monsters - was his appearance: a gentle teddy bear of a man, del Toro peered out from behind thick pop-bottle sized lenses, not unlike The Amphibian Man from the movie. I remember thinking, "He (del Toro) is the creature, he's the misunderstood outcast trying to fit in. The Shape of Water was really del Toro's story.

Throughout his career, del Toro has used fantasy to illustrate broader notions about humanity, often blurring the line between real and perceived "monsters." He often uses backdrops of political oppression or conflict (the Spanish Civil War in 2006's Pan's Labyrinth, the Cold War in The Shape of Water, Italy's interwar Fascist regime in 2022's Pinocchio), and integrates Catholic/religious images and themes that examine complex moral choices, faith, compassion and forgiveness. He is unfailing in depicting those who are marginalized or outcast from society. When asked about his fascination with monsters in a recent interview, del Toro responded, "Monsters are the patron saints of imperfection."

And so now, finally, Frankenstein, Mary Shelley's classic nineteenth century Gothic novel that first inspired del Toro's fascination with ghoulist beasts. To say this is del Toro's passion project is an understatement, but to assume that del Toro is merely retelling Shelley's classic novel for the big screen would be likened to underestimating del Toro's own creative genius. Shelley maybe his muse, but del Toro gives the story its heart and The Creature its soul. To experience Frankenstein in the theater means being swept up into a dazzling romantic opera. Everything is big, over-the-top: from Alexandre Desplat's mesmerizing score to Dan Laustsen's sweeping cinematography, you cannot take your eyes off the action on the screen, with del Toro's intelligent screenplay beautifully advancing the narrative.

You know the story, yes? Young Victor Frankenstein (Christian Convery) is doted on by his mother Baroness Claire Frankenstein (Mia Goth) and ignored by his strict, renowed physician father, the Baron Leopold Frankenstein (Charles Dance). When Claire dies in childbirth, young Victor is increasingly estranged from his father, who focuses on surviving younger brother William (Felix Kammerer), and becomes fixated on death, or rather, how to eliminate it.

Years later, Victor (Oscar Isaac) is a brilliant, if arrogant surgeon, who dazzles colleagues with his vision of conquering death. But, after re-animating a corpse at a medical lecture, Victor is fired from university, rescued only by arms merchant Henrich Harlander (the always devilishly menacing Christoph Waltz), who gives Victor unlimited funding and an abandoned tower to continue his experimentation. The outcome, of course, is a successfully re-animated "creature," the product of various anatomical parts obtained from the corpses of numerous fallen soldiers from the Crimean War. [Note: del Toro moved some of the novel's action to the mid-19th century as a plot device to explain Harlander's connection to Victor.]

From here, the story of Frankenstein and his creation (Jacob Elordi), a dysfunctional father-son/God-Adam kind of relationships ensues. The narrative, which includes Shelley's "Prologue" and begins with an expedition near the North Pole where we see the culmination of Victor's and The Creature's struggle. Their respective stories are told in flashback, first from Victor, then The Creature.

Even if you've seen some - or all - of the previous thirty versions of Frankenstein, you'll want to see this one. I'm a fan of Mel Brooks's Young Frankenstein (1974) myself (limited violence, no gore), but I can't say enough about what del Toro has captured in this, arguably, the most eloquent and human interpretation of Shelley's enduring tale. The aforementioned Desplat score is dramatic: alternately, quiet and moving, then big and overpowering, in one sequence, while Victor asseumbles various body parts in anticipation of completing his creation, the music is absolutely joyful; later, as tragedy descends, the notes are quiet and somber. Pairing the visually sumptuous cinematography with elegant interior and exterior sets, del Toro has crafted a plot-driven film where the action is never overshadowed by the humanity inherent in the story. The production design - from the 19th century university amphitheaters to the forboding tower that serves as Victor's lab to the desolate scenes of the frozen Arctic - is sumptuous and filled with intricate period detail. That del Toro moves effortlessly from brilliant color to black and white and back to candlelit, sepia toned interiors is a marvel.

In the midst of del Toro's sensuous environment is a first-rate group of actors: Oscar Isaac, who, in profile, bears a strong resemblance to the poet George Gordon/Lord Byron (a friend of Mary and Percy Bysshe Shelley and who famously dared Mary to write him a good ghost story, thus creating the impetus for her novel Frankenstein), is superbly cast as the tortured physician. In a role that could have gotten swept up in the story's melodrama, Isaac manages to restrain Victor's emotions in what could have been an otherwise maniacal role: the range of Victor's grief, the triumph of his creation, and the tragdy of what he has done in the process, are all genuinely realized.

Isaac leads a strong cast with co-stars Waltz, Hammerer and Mia Goth (who plays both Victor's mother and William's fiancé Elizabeth. But it is Jacob Elordi, as The Creature, whose performance stands above the rest (and not just because he's 6'5"). In a role that requires him to move from childlike innocent to tortured animal, from emerging man to feared menace, Elordi is almost otherworldly in his ability to capture the humanity in a creature whose very being suggests it may not have a soul.

Del Toro's design for The Creature is similar to The Amphibian Man in The Shape of Water. Both creatures - and actors Elordi and Jones - are tall and slender, towering over everyone, yet each one moves in such a way that is less imposing and more fluid, almost poetic. Elordi's face, a kind of death-like blue pallor, is not opaque, but translucent, and his eyes express The Creature's curiosity, fear, kindness, hope, and sadness so evocatively that you can't take your eyes off him. I have not seen a breathtakingly beautiful breakthrough performance like this in a very long time, and I hope AMPAS will remember Elordi come Oscar time.

The haunting final shot of Elordi's face will linger with me for a very long time to come, not because of its horror, but because it expresses the most profound essence of what it means to be human, to show compassion, and, above all, to love. Like the puppet-turned-boy in Pinocchio, del Toro examines the beauty and mercilessness of life, the horror and respite of death, the promise and fear of immortality. In the end, of being human, The Cricket tells Pinocchio, "What happens happens... and then you're gone."

Through The Creature, we see the promise and pain of being human: we witness the transformation of an indestructible manufactured "monster" into someone with a soul who sadly understands all the joy and misery that come with being alive.

And thus the heart will break and yet brokenly live on. 

-Lord Byron, Childe Harold's Pilgrimage

*******

Frankenstein is kind of movie you go out to the theater to experience, though most people will probably need to stream it since it is currently in a very limited theatrical run before heading to Netflix November 7. Either way, this is a movie worth making time for. It may be the best film I've seen so far this year. Frankenstein is rated "R" for adult themes and some graphic anatomical gore.