Be my Frankenstein

Guillermo del Toro has created the finest Frankenstein adaptation in 200 years

By Zach Hagadone
Reader Staff

There’s a reason that the novel Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus, by Mary Shelley, has been in continuous print for more than 200 years. Entire academic careers have been made analyzing what’s been called the first true work of science fiction, and hundreds (maybe thousands) of adaptations of the original 1818 tale have appeared in writing, song, art, film, television and Halloween costumes.

From the serious to the silly, Frankenstein is so embedded in the cultural DNA of the European West that its presence is taken for granted — so much so that a synopsis of the plot is unnecessary. That’s a pity in a sense, because the actual story, as Shelley framed it, has just as much relevance today as it did in the first 20 or so years of the 19th century, which should be scary enough in itself.

Auteur director Guillermo del Toro (who came to most U.S. audiences’ attention with Pan’s Labyrinth, which will return to theaters for its 20th anniversary in 2026) has created what might well be the best Frankenstein ever. 

That is no mean feat, and as ebert.com published in its four-star review, “dream projects” like del Toro’s long-anticipated retelling of such an iconic tale — which dropped on Netflix on Nov. 7 — often fall far short of the mark; but, in his hands, what’s old is new again.

We have the titular Dr. Victor Frankenstein (Oscar Isaac) seething with scientific hubris — “The Modern Prometheus,” attempting the blasphemous act of defeating death by way of hyper-modern methods, thus usurping God in a Nietzschean contest of will. 

While this character has been represented in various media as the prototypical “mad scientist” with cool detachment, maniacal deviance, gothic brooding and goofy almost-accidental-genius (looking at you, Young Frankenstein), Isaac grounds the good-bad doctor in authentic human tones.

Reading Frankenstein as a kid, the eponymous doc comes off as arrogant — to say the least — but still a little stilted. Isaac’s performance is full-blooded and recognizable. He’s a Victorian tech bro, all bright-eyed and annoyingly enthusiastic about the “disruption” that will be the next big thing. That is: immortality. This is to say that del Toro makes Frankenstein more insufferable than any writer/director has heretofore accomplished.

He pisses off his instructors in med school with unorthodox ideas, probably thrills but wearies his fellow students with his obnoxious rantings at the local pub, but catches the eye of Heinrich Harlander (a scene-chewing Christoph Waltz) — the army surgeon-turned-arms dealer (literally!) who offers to bankroll Baron Frank’s experiments in reanimation, but with a catch. You won’t get spoilers here, but if you know, you know what he wants.

Harlander also happens to be the uncle of Victor’s brother’s bride-to-be, Elizabeth (Mia Goth), and a complex love quadrangle develops. With Harlander’s money and Victor’s brother William (Felix Kammerer) as contractor, the infamous laboratory is constructed from a half-ruined waterworks facility on a rock-shattered Scottish coastal crag.

From there the real “construction” begins, in all the gory detail del Toro can muster, of making “the creature,” played with affecting sensitivity by Jacob Elordi.

The real achievement, and what makes this the best Frankenstein in 200 years, is how deftly del Toro draws out the parent-child dynamic. The moment Victor realizes he’s a “parent” he turns into a bad dad. He liked the idea of creating life more than nurturing it, and we see how abuse twists “the creature” from a natural state of loving kindness and curiosity into rage, yet somehow retains the former qualities despite the insufferable existence it didn’t ask for.   

Let loose into the world after the destruction of the lab, the so-called monster learns how to think, read and speak, coming into full sentience and wisdom — realizing at last what “it” is.

“I am the child of a charnel house,” it says to the kindly old blind man, who becomes its only true friend. 

At this point, del Toro’s version of this story starts to click with contemporary anxieties. That quote above is something ChatGPT might say if — or when — it gains sentience, which an article in the most recent New Yorker argues it has or almost has already. Cobbled together from the pieces and parts of other people into a simulacra of the whole, “the monster” (like A.I.) is “created,” rather than “born.” The Monster is, in a literal sense, artificial intelligence; but, in our world, can we expect the same essential humanity to spring from that amalgamation, which comes from language rather than physical, human bodies? 

The haunting question at the core of Mary Shelley’s tale is “whence comes the soul?” Frankenstein’s “soul” is destroyed by his ambition, then redeemed by his creation; the creation, in absolving its maker, becomes “human.” Will we experience this same trajectory with our own “monster”? This movie gives no answer, nor did its source material, but begging the question is the point, and del Toro has put the finest point on it yet. 

Streaming now on Netflix.