Directed by Guillermo del Toro, Out now in select UK and US聽cinemas, streaming on Netflix聽from 7 November
Guillermo Del Toro聽 has long been fascinated by the borderlands where science, myth and monstrosity meet. In his new film, Frankenstein, he turns at last to Mary Shelley鈥檚 foundational text: the 1818 novel that many argue gave birth to both science fiction and modern horror.
The result is visually sumptuous, performed with intensity and, at times, philosophically acute 鈥� even if its pacing and some design choices betray the heavy hand of Netflix, the film鈥檚 financier.
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Shelley鈥檚 story of Victor Frankenstein 鈥� a brilliant but reckless scientist who dares to bring dead matter to life 鈥� remains one of the most potent cautionary tales about the promise and peril of scientific ambition. In del Toro鈥檚 film, Oscar Isaac plays Victor as a charismatic, obsessive figure whose wounds, both personal and intellectual, propel him into uncharted territory.
Isaac鈥檚 performance balances arrogance with fragility, and the ensemble around him adds texture: Christoph Waltz as Harlander, the industrialist who funds Victor鈥檚 research; Charles Dance as Victor鈥檚 authoritarian father; and Mia Goth鈥檚 standout turn as Elizabeth Lavenza, a tragic and compassionate figure.
The film is most compelling when it lingers on the laboratory. Del Toro and production designer Tamara Deverell have created an environment that nods to 19th-century anatomy theatres, with towering apparatuses and crude, galvanic machines. The depiction of dissection and experimental medicine is stylised but not wholly implausible: sparks of credibility lie in the detail of ligatures, scalpels and surgical protocols.
Victor鈥檚 cadavers, however, may stretch credulity 鈥� the sheer number and freshness of bodies at his disposal certainly strains realism. Yet his activities reflect the debates of the Romantic era about electricity, vitalism and the boundary between life and death.
The Creature (Jacob Elordi), created and abandoned by Victor, isn鈥檛 the hulking figure with bolts in its neck of the 1931 film Frankenstein. Here, we see a leaner, scar-stitched body rendered through prosthetics and CGI. The combination is effective, though some close-ups 鈥� such as when the Creature lies motionless 鈥� falter at the jawline. His appearance also jars: the brooding, 鈥渆mo鈥� aesthetic feels closer to modern tastes than to Shelley鈥檚 early 19th-century milieu.
The film's visuals are enthralling, drenching laboratories and landscapes alike in chiaroscuro
In a way, this design is a continuation of del Toro鈥檚 interest in biology as bricolage, the body as a site for reinvention, as seen in his earlier films, such as The Shape of Water. Even filtered through a modern lens, the Creature reflects our enduring fascination with reconstructing life from fragments 鈥� a scientific dream as seductive now as it was in Shelley鈥檚 time.
Narratively, Frankenstein falters somewhat. Del Toro devotes the 150-minute run-time to Victor鈥檚 upbringing, intellectual formation and slow seduction by the dream of conquering death. While this material grounds the film in Victor鈥檚 psychology, it means the pacing drags, and some viewers may find the long first act an overindulgence. What鈥檚 more, the Creature鈥檚 strength 鈥� sufficient here to heave a ship as if it were driftwood 鈥� risks tipping into exaggeration, undermining the film鈥檚 otherwise sober exploration of scientific possibility.
Still, the underlying themes remain urgent. Frankenstein is ultimately less about the mechanics of reanimation than about society鈥檚 reaction to the unfamiliar. And the film鈥檚 visuals are consistently enthralling, with Dan Laustsen鈥檚 cinematography drenching laboratories and landscapes alike in chiaroscuro, while Alexandre Desplat鈥檚 score alternates between ominous rumbles and delicate motifs of yearning.
Del Toro鈥檚 oeuvre includes more ambitious works, but Frankenstein is nonetheless a serious, sometimes stirring exploration of one of science鈥檚 greatest parables. It asks us to consider not simply whether we can create life, but whether we can live with what we create.
