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James Mottram

4.5/5 stars
“In seeking life, I created death.” So says Oscar Isaac’s unhinged Victor Frankenstein in Guillermo del Toro’s magnificently crafted take on Mary Shelley’s 1818 Gothic masterpiece.
This “modern Prometheus” tale, to borrow from Shelley’s subtitle, has been told many times on film, with varied results. But unquestionably, Del Toro’s version is the most beautiful, perhaps the most definitive.
Premiering in competition at the Venice Film Festival, Frankenstein begins near the end, as Isaac’s scientist is discovered in the Arctic by a ship’s captain on an expedition to the North Pole.


Close by is the creature he has created from sewn-together body parts. It wants… what? Revenge, freedom or something else?
Del Toro draws from elements of the classic 1935 Universal monster film Bride of Frankenstein too, subtly weaving them into the Shelley narrative.
Playing Frankenstein’s “monster” is Jacob Elordi, the Australian actor a long way from his high-profile roles in Euphoria and Sofia Coppola’s Priscilla. His face disguised for great swathes of the film, his flesh covered in scars, it is a lovely physical performance from the actor, who has little dialogue.
He is Frankenstein’s toy. “Everything was new to him,” the scientist remarks, “and I was there to mould him.” Therein lies the tragedy, as the creator playing God never treats his creation with humanity or dignity.

Christoph Waltz features as Frankenstein’s patron and Mia Goth as the sensitive niece engaged to the scientist’s younger brother, and there are telling roles for Charles Dance and David Bradley.
But this is really a see-saw narrative that tips between Isaac and Elordi, boldly realised with some quite astounding cinematography and production design.
Just about everything feels tangible in this early-19th-century world, right down to the animatronic-animated experiments that Frankenstein demonstrates to the Royal College of Medicine.
If Goth’s rather fey performance as Elizabeth can sometimes grate, it is a minor gripe in what is a masterly work from Del Toro, one that feels like the culmination of a career devoted to monster films – think The Devil’s Backbone, Pan’s Labyrinth and The Shape of Water.

Even prompting thoughts about the current tinkering with AI and the notion of bringing life to the artificial, this is a relevant and resonant take on Shelley’s text.
Nodding to Milton’s Paradise Lost, and the Fall of Man, Del Toro manages to create a work both scholarly and uproariously entertaining.
Frankenstein will start streaming on Netflix on November 7.
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Oscar Isaac, Jacob Elordi and Christoph Waltz star in this incredible take on Mary Shelley’s 1818 Gothic masterpiece


Oscar Isaac, Jacob Elordi and Christoph Waltz star in this incredible take on Mary Shelley’s 1818 Gothic masterpiece.


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.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}Oscar Isaac, Jacob Elordi and Christoph Waltz star in this incredible take on Mary Shelley’s 1818 Gothic masterpiece

Oscar Isaac, Jacob Elordi and Christoph Waltz star in this incredible take on Mary Shelley’s 1818 Gothic masterpiece