Review - Frankenstein
Directed by: Guillermo del Toro
Written by: Guillermo del Toro
Starring: Oscar Isaac, Jacob Elordi, Mia Goth, Christoph Waltz
Running Time: 150 Minutes
Rating: 4.5/5
Guillermo del Toro has delivered another visual marvel with Frankenstein, a film that distills Mary Shelley’s novel down to its most essential and enduring question. What does it mean to feel human, and who gets to claim true humanity. Del Toro approaches the material with a clarity of purpose that feels both bold and deeply reverent. The result is one of his most haunting and emotionally direct works.
Jacob Elordi is astonishing as the Creature. He disappears into the role, using his height and physical presence to create an immediate, imposing silhouette, yet pairing it with some of the most nuanced vocal and physical acting of his career. He plays the Creature with tenderness, regret, and a fragility that builds slowly under the surface. It is a performance that seems almost impossible for anyone else to have given in quite the same way. Mia Goth and Oscar Isaac both do strong, committed work, but they inevitably pale next to what Elordi is doing here. He is the gravitational center of the film.
Del Toro’s long-running preoccupations are all here: monsters, fathers, the creation of monsters, and the monstrous ways fathers fail their creations. The thematic terrain is familiar, but the execution is unusually sharp. The pacing is incredible. Every scene feels carefully calibrated, and the film moves with purpose, building toward something both tragic and unexpectedly gentle. The story unfolds with the inevitability of a dark fairy tale.
The score is another triumph. It swells and recedes with a kind of aching precision, underscoring the Creature’s emotional arc without overwhelming it. It may be one of the most effective scores in Del Toro’s filmography, elevating the film’s gothic tone while grounding the more intimate moments in something honest and raw.
Visually, the film is everything you would expect from Del Toro. Gothic, tactile, richly detailed, and filled with the sort of painterly compositions that linger in your mind long after the credits fade. The influence of Bernie Wrightson’s illustrations can be felt in every corner of the frame, giving the world a textured, illustrated quality that feels both classic and unmistakably Del Toro.
Frankenstein is a wonderful interpretation, shaped by a filmmaker working at full power. It is soulful, devastating, and visually extraordinary. Del Toro has finally realized his dream project, and the result is a film that feels destined to be one of his career-defining works. I cannot wait to see where he goes next.
