Del Toro has always been one for sentimentality and melodrama. His first break through hit was a fairy tale about a young girl escaping an abusive world. There’s few other ways to tell a story like that other than melodramatically. It’s what made his super hero franchise Hellboy stand out among the rest. There are real emotions, not just stakes, but feelings behind characters motivations. There’s a scene in Hellboy where our red fisted hero is talking to his fishy friend Abe Sapien about a girl he has a crush on. It’s not a short sequence! Marvel could never. Director Del Toro has upped the level of melodrama he is accustomed to using in his run on Frankenstein, a retelling of the original 1818 novel.

The film is broken into two distinct acts, the first being the tale of creation from the viewpoint of Dr. Victor Frankenstein (Oscar Isaac), and the second being from the viewpoint of The Creature (Jacob Elordi). The accounts are of two different timelines and one feeds neatly into the other. As much as the story is familiar, Oscar Isaacs choices in particular keep you leaned in. His portrayal of Frankenstein is one of a man on the edge of greatness. Del Toro recently compared him to the tech bros of Silicon Valley, egotistical and arrogant in a way that’s exceedingly dangerous. Isaac’s work exudes that mentality, quick to make a rash decision and desperate for perfection. During the events that bring The Creature to life one of his devices become bent out of shape. It’s this imperfection that makes him believe his experiment was a failure, and that the reason The Creature is unable to speak is unrelated to the harsh conditions that he himself is creating. His focus on his own view of perfection and success clouds his vision to the point that he can’t see his child for what he truly is.

Elordi has less to do, The Creature has considerably less lines than the doctor, but by the second half of the film is fully emerged into the story. Elordi’s height is doing a lot of the heavy lifting in terms of screen presence, but it’s his eyes that portray the version of The Creature that Del Toro is trying to get across. There is a softness to Elordi’s eyes that let you believe The Creature is capable of more than what Victor believes. Even changing the title of the character from “The Monster” to “The Creature” tells you Guillermo’s tragic view of this protagonist. It’s not until he finds a safe and happy home and makes a friend that The Creature is able to realize his full potential.

Guillermo’s movies have long since been concerned with parenthood. Hellboy’s adoptive father, Pinocchio’s relationship with Geppetto, and Ofelia’s abusive step father in Pan’s Labyrinth are all at the forefront of what feels like is Guillermo’s worst nightmare; a parent who is unwilling and incapable of providing a loving home for their offspring. It is at the heart of what the book is about, and by the end of the movie Del Toro purges those demons in his own way, while honoring the brilliant work that Shelley had laid down in her novel.

It’s impossibly important to note that at every point of the film the imagery pulls the story together. The set design, the camera work, the costumes, it’s possibly Del Toro’s best looking film and that’s pulling from a catalogue of impressive works. Each scene is filled to bursting with Victorian era inequality, from marble caskets to filthy alleys filled with criminals waiting to be hung, it’s worth watching a second or third time just to see all the craft work that went into bringing this film to life. The Creature tracking Dr. Frankenstein to a ship frozen in ice is a luxuriously stunning cold open. I have some concerns that once the film hits Netflix streaming compression will darken all the sets to obscure blackness, but very glad they at least gave it a modest theatrical run. If you have the time, it’s absolutely worth seeing on as big of a screen as possible.

I can’t lie though, the film perhaps overstays its welcome a bit. At one hundred and fifty minutes it’s hardly a breeze and is certainly a story we’ve seen before. But the parts of the movie that work, absolutely work. Primarily Isaac’s run at Dr. Victor Frankenstein and of course the gothic look of the film that Del Toro is so practiced at.

4.5/5