Watched it with a large and lively group of students on a big screen last night (“I haven’t read the book or seen any of the other movies,” one confessed, “I’m just here for Jacob Elordi”) and have to say I was more underwhelmed than I’d hoped to be. (Although I did enjoy the Creature as David Bowie.)

 

To be fair, any attempt to capture the lightning in a bottle that is Mary Shelley’s original is probably doomed to fall short, marked by its era’s (and director’s) preoccupations (as any adaptation must be.) Del Toro has said that Frankenstein is the story that means the most to him – next to Pinocchio. His Victor Frankenstein is warped by a cruel, controlling father and thus, in 21st-c cinema logic, doomed to pass this bad parenting on to the Creature. A colleague remarked, “I find Shelley’s focus on hubris and its impact more elevated, expansive, and tragic than del Toro’s rather mundane daddy-wasn’t-very-nice stuff.” Agreed: the ending of the film has gained in pathos but lost much of Shelley’s mystery, artistic boldness, and sheer jaw-dropping awe.

Pros:

– In its own way, Del Toro’s framing is faithful to Shelley’s own narrative structure – Creature’s story within Victor’s within Walton’s. “He’s right,” I found myself thinking as I watched, “this really is a novel about two men in a ship’s cabin, talking.” With present tense and flashbacks, we hear Victor’s story from Victor and the Creature’s story from the Creature in this film. That means the Creature occupies foreground, main-character space for the film’s viewers in the way he does for the novel’s readers, in a way that feels new and welcome to me.  

– Thankfully, there’s no “reanimating of Elizabeth into the Creature’s female companion” mutilation. There *is* a lovely delicacy to the scenes with Elizabeth and the Creature that feels like “The Shape of Water,” and a beauty to the newly born Creature that’s a nice rebuke to the moaning bolt-headed cliche (and a highly sensible use of Jacob Elordi!) 

– I loved the itchy, weird, steampunky bits – where the film’s sensibility snaps into focus – and wanted more. Victor’s first experiment, in front of his horrified professors. (!!!!) The syphillitic arms merchant (Christoph Walz) who lets del Toro suggest the battlefield – not the cemetery – as Victor’s body source. This is one benefit of moving the film’s action up into the 1850s. Another is that it lets Del Toro use the satisfying tools of early photography: big box cameras and glass slides. In one gorgeous image, the Creature lifts one and holds it to his own face, both mirror and veil.   

– Costumes and visuals: over the top. And rightly so.  

– The ship, the ice, the opening 20 minutes!

– The Terminator-ish red gleam that comes and goes from the Creature’s left eye.

– The Creature recites (a part of) “Ozymandias!”

– Best recreation of “the birth scene” ever, because it’s based in a tenderness del Toro seems to feel for, and to allow to be present in, this Creature. Victor does wake to find the Creature standing over him but does not, initially, respond with horror, as in the novel. For a little while, it does seem as if this relationship could be different.

Cons:

– The ending, as noted….

– Mia Goth is almost unwatchably wooden, with an impassivity that makes even her rote “rebellious 19c girl” outbursts feel pained. 

– The film is just too long. More editing would have spread the swift, bristly energy of Victor’s first experiment (again: !!!!!) through the whole film.  

– The Creature’s and old blind DeLacey’s friendship is ended…by a wolf attack? 

Overall, though, I enjoyed the film – and really enjoyed my students’ excitement about it! Some were first-years reading Frankenstein in my Paideia section, others were creative writers, some were just there for interest, and others were preparing to embark on my Frankenstein-themed study-abroad course in two months. I have to say I’d rank this slightly behind “28 Years Later” (which I saw in London this summer), although I appreciate its kindred ambition and heart. Looking forward!