Frankenstein (2025, R)

Guillermo del Toro has given us all kinds of incredible work over the years—like so many, my introduction to him was with Pan’s Labyrinth, and I love nearly everything I’ve seen of his. But I don’t think it’d be a stretch to say that this is the film his career has been leading towards.

After the traumatic death of his mother, Victor Frankenstein devotes his life to the obsessive study of conquering death. Universities and scientific institutions decry his work as blasphemous, but Victor is undeterred. When he finally succeeds in animating a body, he’s at first amazed but later fearful and disgusted of his Creature. As Victor prepares to wash his hands of his “failed” experiment, only his brother’s fiancee Elizabeth truly empathizes with the Creature and endeavors to understand him.

It’s been a while since I read the novel, so I’m not sure if some of the beats I don’t remember come from the book or del Toro’s vision for the story. But this is a bold exploration of Frankenstein, equal parts visually arresting, coldly brutal, and lyrically insightful. It’s hardly the first adaptation to ask, “Who is the real monster?”, but it asks the question beautifully. I like the framing device by which the story is told largely in flashbacks, and I like how much time is taken to establish the foundations of the story, both in setting up who Victor is/what shapes him and in depicting the earliest period of the Creature’s life.

I love the idea that, in “conquering death,” Victor has actually condemned the Creature. “I felt lonelier than ever,” the Creature says, “because for every man, there was but one remedy to all pain: death, a gift you too had denied me.” The Creature feels all the pain the world has to offer, over and over, but he heals from every fatal blow. Again, while it’s not the first film to explore the tragedy of immortality, I love how it’s done here.

I also really like what the film does with Elizabeth: the character herself, as well as her relationships with the men in her life. By the time she meets the Creature, she’s been established well enough that her reaction makes perfect sense. This leads to some excellent scenes—with the Creature, obviously, but also with Victor as she tries to get him to reckon with the responsibility his breakthrough has given birth to.

This being a del Toro film, it’s no surprise that the Creature is beautiful, sympathetic, and tragic. So much care and love has clearly been poured into this character. His aesthetic is striking, and Jacob Elordi’s performance is wonderfully nuanced, speaking volumes with his physicality and facial expressions. His counterweight is Oscar Isaac’s Victor, who is brilliant, passionate, and egotistical. Despite his motivations being rooted in his mother’s death, his desire to conquer death is less about preserving life and more about fashioning himself into a new Prometheus. He’s ecstatic and fascinated when he succeeds in creating life, but he doesn’t take time to reckon with the implications of that. And standing between the maker and the so-called monster is Elizabeth, played by Mia Goth. While the Creature is feared and reviled for his appearance, struggling against the slings and arrows of a world that doesn’t want him, Elizabeth has always been seen for her beauty and not her intelligence or integrity, struggling to fit into a world that wants to slot her into a predetermined rightful place.

Aside from the three leads, who are all fantastic in their roles, the film is populated with fine actors turning in good work. We have Christophe Waltz as Elizabeth’s uncle/Victor’s benefactor, Charles Dance doing what he does as Victor’s cruelly demanding father, and David Bradley as the blind man who befriends the Creature. The film also features appearances from Lars Mikkelsen, Ralph Ineson, and Burn Gorman.

Warnings

Strong violence/gore (against both humans and animals,) strong thematic elements, language, brief nudity, drinking/smoking, and nondisabled actors playing disabled characters.

Poem: Frankenstein's Monster Has Words with His Maker (2014)

Because it's my blog and I'll shamelessly self-promote if I want to, I'm wrapping up the month with an original poem.  To ease you in, it's based on one of the pieces I reviewed earlier (twice!,) Danny Boyle's Frankenstein.

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Frankenstein’s Monster Has Words with His Maker

I could have loved you.

I was born in lightning,
Lit by the spark of your genius,
And you were my god.
Though I wasn’t formed of your dust or your rib,
I was made of you all the same.
You fashioned me from your sweat,
Your scope, and your hunger,
And I’d have been your opus if you’d let me –
Oh, if only you had let me.

Instead, my life – (you gave me life;

The size of it!) – my life
Was a no-thing for you to discard
When the equation grew unruly.
You left me to your harsh world
With its noise and heat and heat and hate,
Where I was kicked at and snarled at,
And my being-aliveness battered at me
In ways man wasn’t meant to face alone.

You thought I was built for your annotation,

That I ceased to persist when the figures were erased,
But the experiment has climbed out of your hypotheses
And lives beyond your reckoning of him.

I – your idea, your creation, your man – stand now before you.

The scars my wanderings have earned me
Crisscross against the roughly-sewn stitches
With which you patched my piecemeal body together.
Look into eyes you plucked from a grave, and tell me:
Scientist, what have you wrought?

Frankenstein: Version 2 (2011)

 

Watching the same production with alternating leads is fascinating.  It’s like Miller and Cumberbatch are the variables in an equation:  the two small changes that effect the whole outcome.  While so much is the same, so much is different, either subtly or significantly.  The equal-yet-opposite version 2 features Miller as the Creature and Cumberbatch as Frankenstein.

 

Exhibit A:  Jonny Lee Miller’s Creature.  Right from the start, he’s less gangly than the long-limbed Cumberbatch, so his movements aren’t as reminiscent of a baby deer trying to stand up.  Rather, he sidles along with a timid, light-footed shuffle, perched on his toes like he’s ready to take flight at a moment’s notice.  His Creature is more forceful; when he confronts Frankenstein and when he demands answers in a confusing world, you can feel the weight behind it.  And yet, he is at the same time almost heartbreakingly vulnerable.  I hope that fans who saw him live still took the opportunity to see this recording, because his facial expressions are worth the price of admission.  I think of the scene where he is touched kindly by another person for the first time – he is shy and apprehensive, but also so starved for contact and affection.  Just masterful.

 

In general, I think that Cumberbatch’s Creature is, to me, more endearing, while Miller’s is a little more complex.  Throughout the play, Cumberbatch’s Creature has a spirit of playfulness and childlike verve that he never quite loses.  Even when he rages against his circumstances or does horrible things, there’s still the tiniest spark to suggest that he’s playing a game.  Miller’s Creature incorporates that childishness to a point, but it’s one of several states swirling within him.  He’s more contemplative, more focused.  He’s shyer, and his heartbreak is a little more piercing.  Truly, I rate the two performances as equally superb for different reasons.

 

Meanwhile, I’d definitely give a slight edge to Benedict Cumberbatch’s Frankenstein over Miller’s.  Miller’s is excellent, but Cumberbatch’s leaves me with a far greater impression.  I can see details of his Sherlock peeking through, that intellectual mania and incurable drive to know.  He is somehow colder (the appraising way he examines his fiancée, like a specimen, is palpably creepy) and warmer (when he describes the mental anguish he’s experienced since animating the Creature, I don’t doubt him for a second.)  It could be that Cumberbatch just has a different energy as an actor – he tends to create characters while the more understated Miller creates people – but his Frankenstein is a stronger presence in the show.

 

I’d say that, overall, the interactions between Frankenstein and the Creature are better here than in version 1, and they bowl me over there!  I’m not even sure why; they just connect in such an electric way.  Maybe it’s the strength of Cumberbatch’s Frankenstein.  Maybe it’s because Miller’s Creature seems a little more grown-up.  Maybe it’s simply my perceptions, having now seen both men in both roles.  Whatever the reason, it’s magic.

 

It seems unsporting to ask me to pick a favorite version.  If pressed, I’d probably slightly favor version 1, but that’s largely due to the first-time factor (similar to the way Christopher Eccleston’s Doctor holds such a special place in my estimation.)  Both versions are absolutely stellar, not to mention engaging enough that my attention didn’t wander seeing the same play 24 hours apart.  If you haven’t seen either, cross your fingers for future showings and – please, for my sake – an eventual DVD release, because it’s really an experience not to be missed.

Frankenstein: Version 1 (2011)

 

For those of you who don’t know, Benedict Cumberbatch and Jonny Lee Miller, everyone’s favorite dueling modern-day Sherlocks, appeared onstage together at the National Theatre in London prior to Jonny Lee Miller being cast in Elementary.  They shared top billing in Danny Boyle’s production of Frankenstein, swapping the roles of Frankenstein and the Creature every other night.  It was filmed (twice) for one of those “theatre in the cinema” live events, and the recordings have been re-aired in theaters a couple times since then.

 

Well, theatre dork, Holmes enthusiast, and Cumberbatch/Miller fan that I am, I road-tripped it down to the nearest theatre showing encores of Frankenstein and put up the cash to see both versions.  Today’s review will be of Cumberbatch as the Creature and Miller as Frankenstein.

 

First off, the production itself is sensational.  It’s stylish and cool, and Danny Boyle really works wonders on the stage.  Light and music is used to tremendous effect, there’s an awesome steampunkish train prop made out of giant gears, and the stage has a large disk in the middle that rotates, tilts, lowers, and elevates depending on the needs of the scene. 

 

Then there’s the play as written.  Getting away from the classic themes and images from the Frankenstein movies, the piece goes back to Mary Shelley’s original novel and draws from that.  The Creature is given back his voice, and heavy emphasis is placed on his growth and introduction to the world he’s just been born into.  More than the story of a man who creates a monster, it’s the story of a monster who doesn’t understand why he’s not allowed to be a man.

 

This leads us, naturally, to Benedict Cumberbatch’s performance as the Creature.  Now, I’ve seen him in a number of different roles, but his Sherlock is of course the most prominent.  The contrast is so stark – his Sherlock is a man whose every move seems intentional.  He speaks at a whirlwind pace, can’t be bothered with “normal” people beyond John, and sublimates his every emotion.  The Creature, meanwhile, brims with an unstudied, endearing clumsiness; the opening scene of the show is a long, wordless sequence of the Creature learning to move, to stand, and to walk, and it’s captivating.  His garbled words come with effort, and his emotions tremble through his unbalanced body at all times.  More than anything, his longing for friendship and acceptance is a wound that cuts through the heart of the play.  At every turn, the Creature is worlds from Sherlock.  It’s a performance I really couldn’t take my eyes off of.

 

Because the story is so focused on the Creature’s journey, Dr. Frankenstein isn’t onstage much for the first half of the play.  When he reappears, however, Jonny Lee Miller gives a strong, nuanced performance.  Frankenstein is an obsessive genius who can’t relate to people, and having achieved the most incredible scientific breakthrough known to man, is unable to share it with a soul.  Faced with his creation, he vacillates between revulsion, elation, horror, and pride.  Though it’s obviously not as flashy a role as the Creature, Miller is highly effective.  The scenes of the Creature confronting Frankenstein – the creation having an argument with his creator – are among the best in the piece.

 

Great play, fantastic production, incredible performances.  Stay tuned for tomorrow’s review of Miller’s Creature and Cumberbatch’s Frankenstein!