Our take
After more than 400 separate film adaptations, is there anything new to say about the monster that birthed the sci-fi genre? Turns out, yes, there is. Writer-director Guillermo del Toro has long dreamed about adapting his favorite movie monster, and it shows, with the few changes he makes to the story. Some book purists may find these changes off-putting, but the way del Toro structures the film actually lines his version closer to the original novel, remixing its epistolary form through a POV shift halfway the film. The shift does erase some of the ambiguity, as film adaptations often do, but overall, it’s a move that makes sense for del Toro. It’s a change that highlights his fascination for the human in the monster, and it’s a change that the cast gamely takes on with their excellent performances.
The story
Dr. Victor Frankenstein, a brilliant but egotistical scientist, brings a creature to life in a monstrous experiment that ultimately leads to the undoing of both the creator and his tragic creation.
Elsewhere
"Guillermo del Toro handles Mary Shelley’s canonical text with the tenderness of a butterfly, exulting in the author’s wisdom and sense of high tragedy while bringing his own steampunk spin to the material."
— Sophie Monks Kaufman
"Where Shelley wrote a gothic thriller in a somewhat realist register, this version of Frankenstein is a grand gothic fairytale and, like all the great fairytales, it’s at its best when it bleeds."
— Catherine Bray
The details
Who picked it
Isabella Endrinal is a curator at A Good Movie to Watch. She's now free from the corporate night shift. Previous articles have been published in outlets such as NANG Magazine. She's currently catching up on some classic films… if she isn't coping with the fact that the Haikyu anime will end soon.
