A non-linear narrative, divided into three parts, chronicles the Creature’s (portrayed by Jacob Elordi) desolate search for solace and companionship in the shadow of his creator’s depraved genius. Particular poignance arrives in a segment centred around the Creature’s kinship with a blind elder and his discovery of purpose and humanity in the retelling of fables about God’s creation and parenthood of man. Even if feigned British dialects and accents by American actors occasionally grate, the performances are strong from talents such as Oscar Isaac, Christoph Waltz, Mia Goth, Charles Dance, and Ralph Ineson.
The book-accurate portrayal of “the Creature” bestows a wistful torment to the character with which the audience can easily relate. The film’s director, Guillermo Del Toro, ought to be credited with achieving for the action horror subgenre what Christopher Nolan has accomplished for the genres of speculative and science fiction, crime, and action more broadly, albeit not to the same staggering heights of commercial dominance, nor the same extent of artistic veneration and critical acclaim. Within his realm of interest and admiration, Del Toro has harmonised more sophisticated conventions and subtext with commercial accessibility.
Works such as 2022’s Pinocchio, 2006’s Pan’s Labyrinth, 2015’s Crimson Peak, 2017’s The Shape of Water, his magnum opus (which earned him an Academy Award for Best Picture), and even 2004’s Hellboy navigate fairytale themes of otherness, innocence, and experience; fascism and authority; and both the frailty and beauty of imperfection. Del Toro’s films are at their most captivating when their narrative and stylistic sensibilities match and mirror the peculiarity and otherness of his subjects. The Shape of Water illustrates this perfectly.
However, just as Nolan resorted to creative safety and recycled the genesis, themes, and impetus of 2010’s Inception with the enjoyable, but vastly inferior, Tenet (2020) for the purpose of mechanical and technological evolution, Del Toro labours a worthwhile but tired message. Whether deliberately or inadvertently, originality and intrigue have been sacrificed in favour of consumerist appeal. In the audience’s reception of and engagement with this rendition, there is now such a sense of detachment from the theatrical charm and warmth of even Del Toro’s earlier works, let alone the traditional, old Hollywood cinematic experience, that it’s challenging to engage with the individual merits of this specific adaptation.
The film is distributed en masse and readily available within an environment that is entirely isolated from the community atmosphere, which grants films such as this one the most character and gravitas. Dan Lausten’s consummate cinematography is somewhat frustrated and betrayed by an overuse of green screens and computer-generated imagery. Although the deliberate and measured use of practical effects, adept set design, and wardrobe offer a respite from these painfully contemporary practices, it’s difficult to argue that the personality of Del Toro’s filmmaking hasn’t been stifled.
Simply put, it’s hard to have any strong feelings or sentiments about Frankenstein. Del Toro may need to be more adventurous in his artistic experiments with the lost, lonely, and abandoned in future if he is to overpower the limitations and hegemony of modern Hollywood.