Words by JANE CROWTHER
Guillermo del Toro has been yearning to give life to Mary Shelley’s classic story of reanimation, morals and monstrosity for decades and it shows in the care and attention in this ravishing retelling. It begins with a bang as a 19th century Royal Danish ship trapped in ice near the North Pole discovers wounded scientist Victor Frankenstein (Oscar Isaac) being pursued by a super-human ‘thing’ which can dispatch sailors with ease and is relentless in its mission. ‘What manner of creature is that?’ asks the horrified captain. ‘What manner of devil made him?’
Those are queries del Toro seeks to explore as we flashback to Victor’s unhappy childhood at the hands of his corporal punishment dad (Charles Dance) and grief at the demise of his beloved mother (Lauren Collins). Determined to conquer death, we next meet Victor as a dandyish rebel showing off his latest experiments to appalled surgeons in Edinburgh. As a gasping, bloodied thorax and arm flails around with electric currents (impressive and gross physical effects), the dodgy doctor attracts the attention of arms dealer Heinrich Harlander (Christoph Waltz) who supplies cash for further experiments, a gothic tower to harness lightning and another psychological wound in the shape of his niece Elizabeth (Mia Goth). Dressed like a bird of paradise with a mind as sharp as her tongue, Elizabeth is betrothed to Victor’s little brother (Felix Kammerer) but her extraordinary empathy for others makes her an intrigue to the callous cadaver collector – and the heart of the story when she encounters the product of Frankenstein’s master work; the ‘monster’.
Del Toro keeps audiences waiting an hour before the arrival of this patchwork creature made up of the dead from battlefields that he’s sawn, snapped and sliced asunder (also pleasingly gruesome). When he appears he’s a pale wraith with huge eyes, a cowering animal that can only utter one word. Buried beneath prosthetics that make him look like living alabaster, Jacob Elordi manages to convey a wide range of emotions with his singular utterance and a performance that lives in the physical. As Frankenstein commits the sins of the father, abusing his ‘son’ and punishing him for a lack of perfection, it’s clear who is the true monster in the scenario…
Gorgeously designed – sets and costumes are painterly in detail, gothic and sumptuous – Frankenstein boasts some explosive set pieces that rival action movies and themes that still resonate with world politics all these years after Shelley first published. Just as then gods and monsters are often interchangeable, Man is the cruelest creature on earth, we are what we do and a powerful man hurling insults is often only describing himself. It’s a faithful – perhaps too faithful for some – adaptation with an awards journey that starts at Venice. It is, both literally and figuratively, bloody good.
Words by JANE CROWTHER
Photographs courtesy of NETFLIX
Frankenstein is in cinemas now
Streams on Netflix from November 7
