Redundant Reviews: Guillermo del Toro's Frankenstein

Introducing...Redundant Reviews whereby I review old and new things of personal interest with zero expectation! Enjoy!

              To be honest, I really wanted to like Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein. Having read the book for the first time in my creative writing graduate program, I fell in love with the deep sensibility, philosophical intensity, and brilliance that is Mary Shelley’s work. After seeing bastardization after bastardization of the story, most only focusing until the inevitable “It’s alive” moment, I wanted more from the movie. I wanted a portrayal that finally did justice to the book, that followed it faithfully and let the story speak for itself.

              Del Toro’s Frankenstein, now streaming on Netflix, is not that movie.

              To be fair, it’s trying to be that movie. Earnestly. Oscar Issac’s performance is nothing short of deranged, in a wholly committed and interesting way. He is at once selfish, charismatic, egotistical, manic, and heartless. The monster among the monsters. The creator that is, ultimately, more flawed than his creation. It’s hard to fault his dedication to the role, even as the pace of the film slogs behind his performance.

Jacob Elordi, in his own right, is less monster and more man. His sculpted together features are less monstrous than the book would have it, which is a creative choice that at once undermines the story and changes the direction of the conversation. In the book, Victor rejects the creature because he is hideous, a fact that highlights his failure to create something ostensibly superior to regular folks. It’s not the only creative choice that diverges from the book. In the book, the creature is intelligent and learns to speak eloquently. Instead, like most portrayals, we have a slow and lumbering speech that is hardly representative of the creature’s potential. A significant portion of the book, told from the creature’s perspective, captures his pain. The quote, “[L]ife, although it may only be an accumulation of anguish, is dear to me, and I will defend it” speaks to the resonant pain the creature faces in his daily life.  The absence of this sensibility, as well as the creature’s journey as a soul tortured, angry, and neglected to the point of seeking vengeance, steers the narrative away from the emotional crux of the novel. Without the moral ambiguity of the creature and the philosophical questions created by the creature’s journey, the movie is more spectacle than substance.

              Speaking of spectacle, Frankenstein is a marvel of cinematography, which, quite frankly, suffers more from a bloated budget than a lack of creativity. It’s garish and gory without purpose, or scientific credibility. For one, there isn’t a single gag among the flies and sinew. Without a doubt, that laboratory would stink to hell. Christopher Waltz is absolutely wasted, his character’s syphilis and “condition” is more of a deux ex machina to get the money needed for the madness and then to get rid of him as an inconvenient character. Then tension here falls flat. It comes on too quickly and is resolved even more so, enough to make it irrelevant. Furthermore, the overt use of color is so obvious as to be ham-handed. Victor wears red gloves; he has blood on his hands. Shocking. And lest you think me a complete troglodyte, think only of- yes, I know, I know- M. Night Shyamalan’s use of red in The Sixth Sense. Hardly as ostentatious, and yet, for all its subtle use, far more effective than the yards of red satin in Frankenstein.

              Frankenstein had potential. Had the writers stuck more to fidelity and less to exhibition, the movie would have worked under del Toro’s considerable talent. Instead, a bloated budget, unnecessary additions (let’s not even talk about the completely extraneous love triangle with a decidedly wooden Mia Goth at its center), and a cinematography more concerned with pageantry than heart, undermines the intentions. Once again, Mary Shelley’s work is overwhelmed by our own sensibilities. Maybe one day, we’ll have a Frankenstein that does her work justice.

Rating 2 out of 5 whatevers

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