Movie review
It was surely inevitable that Guillermo del Toro, that master of creatures and monsters and Gothic gorgeousness (“Pan’s Labyrinth,” “The Shape of Water,” “Crimson Peak”), would one day take on the greatest Gothic monster tale of them all: Mary Shelley’s horror story “Frankenstein,” a classic conceived on a legendary rainy night around the fire more than two centuries ago, with its author still in her teens. Its premise is both simple and unspeakable: A mad scientist, Victor Frankenstein (Oscar Isaac, in a wonderfully operative performance), becomes obsessed with creating life from death, stitching together pieces of corpses in his candlelit laboratory. The creature does, of course, come to life — only for Victor, to quote Shelley in her introduction to the novel, to “rush away from his odious handywork, horror-stricken.”
Over the years, the “Frankenstein” story has seen many screen adaptations, but none of them have looked quite like this one. Del Toro, working with master cinematographer Dan Laustsen (Oscar-nominated for del Toro’s “Nightmare Alley” and “The Shape of Water”), gives this tale a painterly beauty; every scene glows in uncanny light. And light, unexpectedly, is del Toro’s most interesting choice here: Nearly all of the action takes place not during dark and stormy nights, but in bright daylight: This creature (played with eerie innocence by Jacob Elordi) may have been born in darkness, but he belongs to our world. A key scene that takes place in moonlight in Shelley’s book — Victor, unexpectedly surprised in his bedroom, “beheld the wretch — the miserable monster whom I had created” — here happens at daybreak; it’s horror without shadows.
All that light lets us better see del Toro’s bold colors, particularly a lush blood-red that’s everywhere in the film: Victor’s ethereal, doomed mother, swathed in red velvet; the red bedding in which he falls into a troubled sleep; the unexpected stain of blood on a white wedding gown. Kate Hawley’s costumes tell a story with color, particularly on the delicate Elizabeth (Mia Goth), the fiancée of Victor’s younger brother William (Felix Kammerer). She draws all eyes early on, an angelic vision in bright sky-blue; later, we see her wrapped in a murky green veil, as if peering through some miasmic fog. Even the weather seems to bring its own vivid palette: the searing yellow of sunlight, the gentle paleness of snow, the nuanced russet of a single autumn leaf as it floats away.
Del Toro’s story pays tribute to the Romantic era of writers from which Mary Shelley — there’s a reading of a poem by Shelley’s husband, Percy Bysshe Shelley, and a moving quote from Lord Byron at the film’s end. But, for all the corsets and horses and candles, it all feels strangely contemporary. “The world will hunt you and kill you, just for being who you are,” the monster is told, as he tries desperately to find somewhere he might belong. This “Frankenstein” has no shortage of horrors, but it also finds notes of forgiveness and kindness; it’s a monster movie with a soul.
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