seen frankenstein yet? if not, do you plan to?
I saw Frankenstein the first week of its limited theatrical run here in NYC, and I haven't posted about it because I thought it was terrible. Like, I left shocked. It's easily del Toro's weakest movie, and the depressing sign of an artist splashing happily in the kiddie pool of material that neither challenges him or takes advantage of his strengths.
I'm not the biggest del Toro fan, but I genuinely hoped this movie would be a step forward for him. He's spun his wheels with his "monster good, actually" movies for almost a decade now, in part because I think he hasn't been allowed to make Frankenstein. But now that he got the chance...I think we really need to have the conversation about whether or not there's any there there, anymore.
It bums me out to say this, but the first act of the movie reminded me of nothing so much as late period Tim Burton: antic, aesthetically forced, and disinterested in the human feelings and behavior of its characters.
The movie is broadly okay when the Creature is the isolated main character; Jacob Elordi gives a very effecting performance, and the monster makeup is lovely. It's a Pinocchio story steeped in the natural world, where he learns to fear Man as they spurn him. Frankly a bit toothless for me, but fine for some! But the film turns on the relationship between Victor and the Creature, and unfortunately del Toro is, as always, so enraptured with his outcast self-insert that he simply does not care to render Victor as a person. In my opinion, that's the gaping flaw that brings down the whole movie.
This adaptation decides to make the father/son relationship between Victor and the Creature eye-rollingly literal. Whatever, that's not a crime. So as a result, Victor will be Cruel Like His Father, that is his destiny in a del Toro story, as the requisite mannequin who represents a masculinized society that doesn't embrace weirdos. We don't explore why he doesn't seek to be a kinder man, or a man whose brilliance precludes him from being mean and small. Or, conversely, we get no impression that his pride deceives him into thinking he'd never be the man his father was.
Instead, we have Victor. Here he is. His father micromanaged his education, whipped him for any little mistake, and placed enormous familial expectations on his shoulders. He saw Victor as a miniature version of him, and treated him accordingly. Young Victor was sad about this. Adult Victor doesn't seem to feel any type of way.
Fast forward a bit. Adult Victor, because of hubris, now has a Large Son. Here he is.
In a tender scene, Victor seems briefly willing to engage with teaching the Creature, then - mere days later - is impatient and annoyed that the literal human being that he has crafted from the insensible clay of corpses is unable to say anything but his name. The Creature is obviously intelligent, curious, and emotional; Victor doesn't seem to give a shit about any of that. He strikes and chains the Creature for its failure to demonstrate a potential for the norms of 19th century education.
(Interesting that he'd draw the line here, when he himself loudly spurns the academy at every turn. Are you sincere about thinking outside the box or not, bud? Another writer might find it interesting to explore why Victor doesn't just check out a book on sign language and start teaching the Creature that way, but not del Toro!)
Anyway, in this adaptation Victor doesn't spurn his creation out of fear or irresponsibility. He spurns it out of sheer cruelty.
Now, don't get me wrong, this in and of itself isn't something a character couldn't feel. But there's no attempt or even interest to show us why this is something Victor feels. Victor doesn't have a "does this remind you of anything" moment when he rages at the Creature. He doesn't even have a "I refuse to let this remind me of anything" moment. He just does it. That's what happens next.
Later, when VIctor burns down the building, the Creature is totally abject during his preparations, helpless and confused, repeating his creator's name. Victor is completely unmoved. But once the fire starts, and he's safely outside, he hears the Creature call his name and experiences, for some reason, a change of heart, and tries to go back for him. Why? Don't worry about it.
Absolutely inert storytelling.
Or here's another example, beautifully rendered by del Toro's visual imagination and his production team:
Lovely! Very clear! I understand that the roses on Elizabeth's bonnet are in the same shape as Victor's mother's coffin-hole. I see! From this I am to take that Elizabeth, manic pixie bug girl, is pursued by Victor in part because she reminds him of his mother. We don't know his mother. She never did anything onscreen. But okay, let's say that her feminine ways (rejecting war) echo the maternal figure he lost; what does that mean for their relationship as it unfolds onscreen? What are some ways a man in a self-consciously gothic movie might express an Oedipus Complex?
Whatever you can think of, we don't get any of them. Victor doesn't render her an angel or struggle with a desire to sexually debase her. He doesn't seem to want her to nurture or protect him, dominate or humiliate him. The production design yells that he is psychosexually drawn to his future sister in law as a replacement maternal figure, yet we don't see the character engage with this fact, subconsciously or otherwise.
This is a del Toro problem across the board, and it's never been worse than it is in this film. I'm so tired of those connections being plonked into the visuals and never actually being explored as parts of the characters' inner lives. The story as del Toro has rendered it desperately needs Victor to be a real person, whose words and actions and feelings contribute to a thematic whole, and enrich his relationship with the Creature. Instead we get a collection of tics (sorry Oscar) who does things simply because Victor Frankenstein Does These Things In This Movie.
As a result, even when we get a killer line like, "You may be my creator, but from this day forward, I will be your master", there's no emotional dynamic between Victor and the Creature to hang it on. It's not tragic, it's not frightening, it's not even horny. That, to me, is a failure.
I laughed out loud when Christophe Waltz's character decided that the very midst of the storm was the best time to mention that he wanted his consciousness put into the Creature. He's been bankrolling this project for months, why would he hide his actual intent from Victor? (There's an argument to be made that invigorating a new body to save a dying man from syphilis would be seen by the scientific community as less controversial than literally creating life. If he'd mentioned it earlier they might have been able to get more institutional support!) Having him bring it up at the very last minute robs Victor of a character moment where he decides to intentionally betray his investor; you know, something that might demonstrate hubris or interpersonal cruelty in a way that could explicate his behavior to the Creature later. This is a good example of what grinds my gears about this film: there was a place right here to go deeper with the character, to showcase the emotional reality of your (ostensible) co-lead. All the pieces were in in the toolkit! But they were arranged so sloppily, with so little interest in making anyone but the monster a real person, that all we get is a weird logistical speedbump that slows down the action of the biggest setpiece in the movie.
del Toro loves a period piece, but he'll be dammed before he engages with religion beyond using it as set dressing. It honestly feels similar to how 90s anime engaged with Catholic imagery; they're in a cathedral because it looks cool, not because it's symbolic or asking you to interpret a moment through a specifically Christian lens. Again, there isn't anything wrong with that, I too love when the giant cross shows up in Evangelion. But this is an adaptation of Frankenstein, a story that engages heavily with Paradise Lost, and the Christian creation myth. To this end, we get Victor's dreams of the Angel who reveals itself to be Death. But it's not just any angel. It's Saint Michael. He wears armor and a breastplate. Why is it Saint Michael? If we just wanted a religious image, it could have been a Madonna (for the mom stuff) or a more neutral, standard angel (for beauty holding rot beneath it). It could have been anything! Instead it was the warrior of God, the slayer of Satan, the angel of battle, whose iconography has nothing to do with any of the themes in this film. It feels like del Toro chose purely based on design, which is just. Very stupid, I'm sorry.
del Toro loves monsters! Or at least he says he does. But what he actually loves are outcasts. So any monster he writes at this point in his career must be an outcast, their actions must be forced, their violence must be understandable or even fair. I personally think that sucks, and flattens the gothic stories he's inspired by into nothing more than aesthetics and references.
Frankenstein: a famously subtle and complicated work, with themes so hidden from the casual reader that there's a high risk of becoming confused and overwhelmed. How would I have known that Victor was the real monster without three different characters turning what felt like straight to camera and telling me.
I could go on, but I don't know guys, this movie really bummed me out. I like and respect del Toro as a creative force in Hollywood, and apparently he's a lovely, warm person in real life. But Frankenstein is the nadir of his artistic career, and I worry that the broadly positive (???) feedback to this film will keep him there.
