Frankenstein
a film directed by Guillermo del Toro and premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival, September 4–14, 2025
In Mary Shelley’s novel Frankenstein, Victor’s ambitions lead him astray. How ironic, then, that Guillermo del Toro’s lofty aspirations to vivify this classic novel end in disaster. With any literary adaptation, fans will naively point to discrepancies between the screenplay and the book, without knowing just how many changes are necessary to shift mediums. Yet, del Toro, known for embellishing fairy tales and embracing Gothic styles, arguably made too few changes to the original story. Pinocchio, for example, was a clever juxtaposition between a children’s classic and the horrors of fascist Italy. Yet strangely, he made no such bold moves with the plot of Frankenstein. Particularly, in a tale where most readers already know what to expect—Victor’s mother’s death, Victor’s self-imposed isolation and fervour for scientific discovery, the chase between creator and creature—the director’s greatest challenge becomes finding ways to surprise the viewer, to tell the story in a way that invites novel interpretations. In Frankenstein, del Toro seemed unable to choose between adhering to the original story and exploring the nuances of new relationships—namely, the pointless envy between the Frankenstein brothers and Elizabeth’s odd fascination with the creature. These departures from the original story add little to the film beyond providing an excuse for the producers to splurge on Mia Goth’s ethereal feathered, fuchsia gowns. Instead, it takes time away from developing the themes that matter: an unorthodox father-son relationship, the dangers of human hubris, death as a blessing rather than a curse, and the creature’s need for a companion who can share his pain.
As many have pointed out, Jacob Elordi’s acting saves the film. He not only garners sympathy from the audience for his tragic tale as the abandoned son of a cruelly negligent creator, but allows you to share in his experiences of human cruelty—the speed with which the ship’s men shoot him down, Victor’s impatience with his slow infantile learning, and the hunters’ killing of an innocent berry-munching buck before his eyes. His encounter with the de Lacey family perfectly captures the same tenderness and yearning for a happy home life that Shelley crafts in the novel. Likewise, del Toro’s gift for gore shows itself when Victor saws off the limbs of cadavers and when the creature tears the skin off one of the wolves attacking his adopted family home. Yet, all in all, Elizabeth’s death is unmoving, the final scene of forgiveness between the creature and Victor falls flat, and the whole film is two and a half hours too long.