On Monsters, Men, and Mercy: My Thoughts on del Toro’s Frankenstein
Disclaimer first: I haven’t read the original book yet, even though it’s been on my TBR for… years T.T Shameful, I know. But here we are.
What struck me immediately is impossible to ignore: the visuals, the cinematography, the sets. In a world where everything is increasingly digital, it felt genuinely refreshing to see handmade sets crafted with care. Our eyes, even untrained, can tell the difference—there’s a texture to reality that CGI still can’t mimic, and it’s one of the film’s greatest strengths.
Victor is brilliantly acted. Coming into the story without knowing the novel, I actually began with sympathy for him. You see an abusive father, intense mommy issues (very Freudian XD), and a deep jealousy toward his younger sibling. He’s shaped by a violent, toxic masculinity and, to survive it, he reproduces it. Yet it becomes especially fascinating when he tries to defy life itself by creating a human being from scratch.
As he pushes the boundaries of humanity, Victor also becomes obsessed with his brother’s fiancée. In many ways, Elizabeth represents everything he was denied: motherhood, purity, nurturing femininity, and also proximity to his brother, which makes her symbolically desirable. Guillermo del Toro’s decision to cast the same actress as both the mother and Victor’s infatuation is such an intriguing choice.
And then we have Victor, in full hubris mode, securing his laboratory, killing his associate, and finally giving life to the Creature. A Creature we instantly grow attached to. The actor gives him such expressive eyes; his vulnerability is almost unbearable. He’s born asking for nothing, knowing nothing, in pure pain. And Victor, though capable of creating life, has no idea how to care for it. He offers no gentleness, no guidance. He is cruel, demanding, repeating the emotional violence he himself endured. Masculinity as a curse passed down.
The Creature finds instead a softer, almost maternal energy in Elizabeth, who does not meet him with destruction. But even this innocent soul-connection becomes something Victor projects his own fantasies onto. His solution to his own frustration is to kill the Creature—who, thankfully, escapes.
The Creature’s journey is the most compelling part of the film. Watching him survive, bond with nature, learn the world. His friendship with the blind man is beautiful: the blind man cannot see, yet perceives the Creature’s innocence immediately. He sees beyond appearances and connects with his soul. Losing that friend devastates him, and he realizes how trapped he is in a world that refuses to see him as anything but monstrous. When he asks Victor for a companion, he asks for connection, not lust. Once again, Victor reduces everything to carnal desire, unable to imagine intimacy that is not shaped by dominance.
The reunion between Elizabeth and the Creature is brief but gorgeous. Her self-sacrifice to protect an immortal being feels like the ultimate gesture of love and mercy. That final grief pushes the Creature into vengeance, launching the cat-and-mouse dynamic between creator and created. Everything builds toward that last confrontation on the boat with the curious sailor, and honestly, it adds a whole spiritual layer to the story. We have scholars warning Victor not to play God, the old man—kind of Gandalf-coded—sharing ideas of mercy, forgiveness, soul, the meaning of existence. And in the end, we return to that: the Creature is finally acknowledged as Victor’s son, and in that brief moment, forgiveness becomes possible.
It’s also a meditation on the limits of humanity and how arrogance—particularly masculine arrogance—tries to dominate nature itself.
Overall, the film is incredibly acted, beautifully shot, and thematically rich. I can’t speak to how it compares to the original novel yet; I’ll do that once I finally read it. But as its own work, Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein is stunning.
