WARNING: The following contains major spoilers for Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein. We’re all familiar with Frankenstein. Or at least we think we are. Each October, we’re inundated with the iconic image of Boris Karloff’s scared and oddly rectangular face, accompanied by the electric hair of Elsa Lanchester’s reanimated Bride. Most of us can recite the […]
WARNING: The following contains major spoilers for Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein.
We’re all familiar with Frankenstein. Or at least we think we are. Each October, we’re inundated with the iconic image of Boris Karloff’s scared and oddly rectangular face, accompanied by the electric hair of Elsa Lanchester’s reanimated Bride. Most of us can recite the bones of the story: Mad scientist creates a body pieced together from salvaged corpses. Lightning animates this monstrous man, and the scientist is tormented by the hellish figure he’s unleashed upon the world. In the two hundred years since Mary Shelley first published Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus, we’ve seen countless adaptations and homages, filtering the innovative tale through all manner of cultural lenses. In a new adaptation for Netflix, Guillermo del Toro recaptures the heart of Shelley’s original novel with an empathetic retelling of her foundational narrative. Bombastic, bold, and bloody, Frankenstein deviates significantly from its source material while bringing Shelley’s themes to the fore and updating the story for a modern audience.
Shelley’s novel begins with several innocuous journal entries from Captain Robert Walton, currently helming a journey to the North Pole. En route, he crosses paths with a deranged Victor Frankenstein who tells him his side of the twisted story. Del Toro adds action to this snowy scene while introducing us to a ferocious beast. Rather than simply recounting his tale, del Toro’s Victor Frankenstein (Oscar Isaac) is found clinging to life near a flaming ruin. As they struggle to transport the injured man back to the ship, Captain Anderson (Lars Mikkelsen) hears an inhuman roar from off in the distance. A Creature (Jacob Elordi) soon descends upon the ship, demanding they hand over their patient. Impossibly strong and impervious to bullets, he barrels through a sea of attacking sailors, killing six men with his bare hands. He can only be stopped when Anderson fires a mammoth blunderbuss into the ice at the Creature’s feet, sending him plummeting to the icy sea floor.
Shelley’s Monster may be eight feet tall and imbued with surprising power and strength, but he is not immortal. This significant change to the source material lends a modern filter to Shelley’s original warning. Once “born,” the Creature is here to stay, and no change of heart on Victor’s part can erase the painful life he’s created. Once the genie has been unleashed, it can’t be put back in the bottle. Not only a warning to reckless inventors, del Toro cautions against the spiraling damage sparked by unchecked innovation.
Often nominally confused with his undead creation, Shelley’s Victor is a complex and tragic hero who suffers greatly at the hands of his ill-considered progeny. After an idyllic childhood in Geneva with his adopted sister Elizabeth (his cousin in an earlier edition), Victor studies chemistry and anatomy at Ingolstadt, where he becomes consumed with conquering death itself. Adding pathos to his obsession, del Toro’s doomed scientist comes from a life of immense grief and rejection. We meet the young Victor (Christian Convery) at his family home shortly before the return of his cruel father, Leopold (Charles Dance). This abusive doctor puts his son through torturous anatomy lessons and uses corporal punishment as a teaching tool.
Victor’s life is turned upside down when his beloved mother dies in childbirth. Not only does he watch Leopold dote on the resulting younger son, the burgeoning doctor becomes convinced that his father let his wife die to rid himself of a troublesome partner. While praying to an archangel, Victor vows to discover the secrets of life and death, ostensibly to prevent others from suffering similar grief. However, his true motivation is a desire to prove his father wrong as punishment for his mother’s death. This narrative deviation asks us to empathize with Victor while laying the foundation for future cycles of abuse. We will see Leopold’s painful tactics manifested again as Victor tries in vain to teach the Creature to say anything but his creator’s name, one bestowed by an abusive father.
The Sick and the Dead
In addition to a more fulfilling home life, Shelley’s Victor is not such a solitary figure. He attends university with his childhood friend Henry Clerval, who becomes a confidant and constant companion. By contrast, del Toro’s Victor seems to push his colleagues away with outlandish and grisly presentations designed to thumb his nose at the medical establishment. After a particularly disastrous seminar, he’s approached by Harlander (Christoph Waltz), a wealthy arms dealer and former military surgeon who shares his interest in reanimation. Harlander’s niece Elizabeth is engaged to his younger brother William (Felix Kammerer), Victor’s sole living kin. Shelley’s Elizabeth was the orphaned daughter of a peasant family adopted by the Frankensteins and raised alongside Victor. They share a close bond and plan to marry as soon as the doctor can find his way to a stable life.
Del Toro’s Elizabeth (Mia Goth) is an altogether different woman, seemingly inspired by Shelley herself. Though she is wealthy and privileged, Elizabeth longs for autonomy and seems frustrated by her place in this staunch patriarchy. She and Victor bond over a love of science, though her interest lies in bugs and other tiny organisms. Perhaps equally matched in intellect, Elizabeth nonetheless reads something distressing in Victor’s behavior. She visits the scientist at his apartment and seems to be considering romance, but abruptly changes her mind and flees, recommitting herself to William. She will grow ever more distrustful of Victor as she learns more about his ghastly experiment.
While Elizabeth does offer key insight into the Creature’s reanimation, her uncle proves essential to the project’s success. Not only does he become Victor’s financial backer, but he also provides Victor with a crucial piece of scientific knowledge. Harlander is in possession of the valuable 5th Evelyn Table, a board that maps the human body’s lymphatic system. He fully funds Victor’s experiment and helps to procure cadaver pieces, only asking for a small favor in return.
As the thunderstorm rolls in, Harlander reveals his terminal syphilis and fear of succumbing to screaming pain. He has been assisting the idealistic scientist in the hopes that his own brain would be transplanted into the Creature, granting the wealthy man immortal life. Victor adamantly refuses, claiming that Harlander’s diseased cells will pollute his carefully constructed body. A major departure from Shelley’s source material, this rebuff shows the true nature of Victor’s motivation. He does not want to help the sick or find a way to prevent pain and suffering. He is only interested in revenge disguised as accomplishment.
It’s Alive!
Central to our collective understanding of the Frankenstein story is a scene in which a maniacal scientist frantically prepares the Monster’s body on a dark and stormy night. As lightning strikes, he shouts, “It’s alive!” and the Monster slowly begins to move. But this iconic scene was created by director James Whale for his beloved 1931 adaptation of Frankenstein. Shelley’s version of this monstrous birth is much more subtle. Her Victor is so frightened by the Monster’s appearance that he flees to his bedroom and spends a fitful night dreaming of the menacing beast. He awakens to find the Monster looming over his bed and once again runs away.
Del Toro takes elements from both stories before spinning the tale in a new direction. We watch as a picturesque thunderstorm rolls in and Victor struggles to attach metal rods to the crumbling tower housing his laboratory. A bolt of lightning does seemingly spark a battery attached to the Creature’s chest, but the devastated scientist can find no other signs of life. Dejected, he collapses in bed only to wake up to a strange visitor. The Creature lurks nearby, shyly reaching towards his symbolic father. Victor is initially delighted and begins teaching the Creature to move and speak. But he quickly grows bored when the constructed man struggles to pick up other words and assumes his innate stupidity. The thrill of discovery fades away, and he begins to resent his child’s existence. Perhaps the most political element of del Toro’s adaptation is that Victor only cares about the Creature’s miraculous birth. He abandons this flesh and blood human being as soon as his care becomes inconvenient.
Del Toro’s Victor becomes a father figure to the confused Creature, encountering the world for the first time, but rather than mentoring him through these developmental stages, Victor immediately leads the lanky man into the underground sewers of his laboratory and chains him to a slab of stone. Each dismissive interaction seems designed to instill a sense of inadequacy and self-loathing in the strangely hulking child. Victor refers to the Creature as “it” and uses his father’s cruel methods to instruct him in simple humanity. It’s not until Elizabeth discovers the prisoner that he experiences an act of kindness.
Overcome with loneliness, Shelley’s Monster demands Victor make him a companion, but the frightened scientist destroys a salvaged female body midway through its construction. Whale plays this horrific idea out to its logical conclusion in his 1935 sequel, Bride of Frankenstein, with a frightened Bride (Lanchester) built from a murdered woman. Kenneth Branagh’s 1994 adaptation, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, ups the emotional ante as Victor reanimates Elizabeth (Helena Bonham Carter), who, horrified by this grisly existence, immediately lights herself on fire. But regardless of the outcome, each version sees Frankenstein’s Monster threaten to be with Victor on his wedding night.
Del Toro remixes the story by reuniting Creature and Creator on the day of Elizabeth’s wedding to William. Enraged, the Creature violently confronts the horrified scientist, demanding that he construct an undead companion. Hearing the sounds of their struggle, Elizabeth enters the room and immediately rushes to the Creature’s side. Perhaps protective or territorial, Victor grabs a nearby gun and aims it at the hulking man, but accidentally shoots Elizabeth instead. As blood stains her pristine, white dress, the Creature carries the dying bride through the crowded house and a sea of awe-struck wedding guests. Injured in the struggle, a dying William vocalizes Shelley’s central theme: Victor is the story’s monster.
Elizabeth will peacefully succumb to her wound while staring into the Creature’s eyes. She admits that he is the otherworldly companion she’s been yearning for and dies in the joy of fleeting love. Unwilling to put another through his unique pain and sorrow, the Creature abandons his desire for a mate and instead dedicates his life to making Victor feel the pain he has caused.
Freedom in Forgiveness
Shelley’s poignant novel ends in tragedy as Victor reaches peak monstrosity. Aboard Captain Walton’s floundering ship, he spends his dying days objecting to the crew’s pleas to turn around and rhapsodizing about the thrill of dangerous discovery, proof that he has learned absolutely nothing. Later, Walton will discover the Monster weeping over his creator’s body and finally decide to turn the ship around. But del Toro gives us a glimmer of hope in the midst of this bleak cautionary tale. Creature and creator finally make peace as Victor offers a heartfelt apology. Moved, the Creature offers his forgiveness and comforts his symbolic father as he drifts toward the release of death. Victor, in turn, offers a bit of poignant advice. Gazing upon his progeny, he says, “If death is not to be, then consider this my son. While you are alive, what recourse do you have but to live?”
Taking this to heart, the Creature emerges from the ship’s cabin and resumes his icy journey. Impacted by this desolate tale, Captain Anderson orders his crew to man the sails and begin the process of reversing course. He’s abandoning his perilous quest for the North Pole and finally returning home. Galvanized into positive action, the Creature uses his inhuman strength to break the ship free from the ice, then turns to face the morning sun. Unlike Shelley’s bleak conclusion, Del Toro seems to suggest that we all have the power to reverse our own course and mitigate the damage that we’ve caused if we only have the courage to face the truth.
