“Catch Me If You Can,” Spielberg; “Interstellar,” Nolan; “Pulp Fiction,” Tarantino: modern cinema is chalk-full of directors capable of making classics. But very few can resurrect one.
Guillermo del Toro’s “Frankenstein” does something incredibly powerful and rare in an age of repetitive retelling and shameless remakes.
It takes one of the most adapted narrative stories in literary history and makes it painfully, beautifully new.
Del Toro has always written monsters with more depth and dignity than most directors afford their heroes.
From the charismatic heckling of the faun in “Pan’s Labyrinth” to the empathetic and intelligent behaviors of the amphibian man in “Shape of Water,” his creatures are more than just visual spectacles. They’re metaphors for loneliness, power, and the parts of ourselves we are frankly terrified of.
So it comes as no surprise that the story of Frankenstein, one drenched in cheap remakes and parody, finally found a creative mind with the patience to dig to the story’s emotional core.
What sets this adaptation apart isn’t even the stunning performances from Jacob Elordi and Oscar Isaac, and others, nor is it the stunning gothic set pieces.
It’s the way Del Toro floods the viewer with sympathy for a monster.
In this version it is Dr. Frankenstein who is the true architect of horror just as Mary Shelley — the author of the original book — had always intended.
Del Toro’s vision is less about the body horror of a creature stitched together from the remnants of the dead and more a true tragedy about reckless ambition, abandonment, and the violence of a world Frankenstein’s creature never asked to be a part of.
Del Toro is willing to let viewers sit chained in discomfort as their pain is allowed to linger along with the monster’s.
“Frankenstein” isn’t a remake about preying on public nostalgia or about putting a “new spin” on an old story.
Del Toro modernizes this classic by treating the monster in the same way Shelley had intended back in 1818 — as a mirror.
