Review: FRANKENSTEIN

Frankenstein was written as a horror story for a readership whose fear of gods was as real as taxes. Of all the big stories of the genre, Frankenstein is often the least scary. It needs a push. Boris Karloff taking a child's game too far made my favourite version horror. Later interpretations looked into philosophy, the issues that spring like ballistic missles from the notion of creating sentient life. So, when Guillermo del Toro came up with his I was already in line. But I wasn't expecting a horror tale.

If you want one of those, go back to James Whale's breakthrough, or Terrence Fisher's bold return for Hammer (there are a few but Curse is the OG). Del Toro's aim, if you are familiar with his work, would never be generic horror. And this is not.

After a prelude at the North Pole where Frankenstein and his creature are discovered at the end of the story, we enter into what we might comfortably assume will be most of the rest with Victor's story. This is told by Oscar Isaac in a dependably layered performance and takes him from blustering science hero to one horrified and contemptuous of his own creation. Shorter roles by Charles Dance as his bullying father and Christoph Waltz as his later sponsor fill things credibly. 

But then we follow the creature's tale we find out why most of the acclaim for the performances in this film have gone to Jacob Elordi's turn as the creature. Elordi whose beauty is concealed beneath slabs of prosthetics has just enough of his face and his eyes to use for his emotional responses as they appear and develop. Brutalised as his creator projects his own shame on him, echoing both Baron Frankenstein senior and an imaged god's distaste, he is withdrawn and almost mute. In later scenes where his interacition with the outside world complicates, Elordi feeds us painfully gradual inches forward. He plays it as a survival story.

Spanning both these tales is that of Elizabeth, Victor's frustrated love interest and the one who introduces the creature to kindness and a kind of love. She is played by Mia Goth who steals every single movie she is in. Goth's talent is complexity and here she shows it progressively as, scene by scene, her physicality reveals her to be Frankenstein's superior in avante-science, adding compassion to discovery with the kind of fearlessness that defies her constricting times. It's less than a leading performance but it's one you'll be taking away with you.

So, while Del Toro's Frankenstein is not the shrieking pop piece of James Whale or the near psychedelic showreel of Terrence Fisher, it does allow us room to ponder the spiky issues of the story in deliberate pacing (Del Toro can make two hours plus feel quite breezy) and some of the most beautiful imagery you'll see this year. It might not scare you but you'll have something to think about.