Frankenstein
“To you I am obscene, but to myself, I simply am.”
guillermo del toro you have done it once more you wonderful star!!! everything about this movie was lovely. the film unfolds like a melancholy dream as if it was stitched together from grief, tenderness, and the stubborn will to exist. it is not a replication of mary shelley’s story so much as a resurrection of its soul, filtered through del toro’s lifelong devotion to the beautiful and the broken.
i would like to mention that i have seen quite a handful of reviews mentioning the inaccuracy to the original source but i strongly believe that del toro has never been a person you should expect a perfectly faithful adaptation of mary shelley's novel (or any book for that matter) from because he does not care about book purism at all and he will always choose to take his own approach. the most important thing is that the general message of the original novel has been kept. a lot of the things that happened remained, even if in a different 'skin', the point went through. this film is not a replication it is a RETELLING is, as fairytales and stories have been for always, and what is Frankenstein if not a fairytale at its core?
now onto appreciating the beauty of this film. one of my favorite details that del toro changed from the novel, fuck it one of my favorite parts from the whole film is how in mary shelley’s version the creature declares: “If I cannot inspire love, I will cause fear.” but in del toro’s version this becomes: “If you are not to award me love, then I will indulge in rage.” its such a subtle difference that seems unimportant until you take in context all that the monster has gone through up until that point. “I will cause fear” lashes outward; it demands a witness, a victim, someone to see the monster’s pain. whereas “I will indulge in rage” is indignant in all its beauty. it turns inward, a recognition that fury might be the only remaining form of selfhood. mary’s creature acted out to communicate whereas del toro’s creature burns alone, so utterly alone.
del toro has such a beautiful understanding that the border between the sane and the mad, the normal and the monstrous, is drawn by those with the power to exclude (consider "The Shape of Water" as well). victor closes every door that might allow his creation entry into what he calls “the human.” and yet, del toro (ever the poet of the outcast) turns this rejection into defiance. this movie screams “I will be ugly and mad,”/ “and I will enjoy life anyway.”
at the heart of this film del toro declares: all living beings deserve kindness and empathy, no matter their origins. the pain of birth is worth the agony of life and all its small, radiant miracles. what others call monstrous or obscene is simply existence through another lens. the world’s cycles may seem cruel and inevitable, but their constancy is also their beauty. and even those cycles born from human cruelty (from fathers and creators who wound what they make) can be broken.
and dont even get me started on the cinematography!!! every frame is painted with compassion and despair in equal measure. the color work is absolutely staggering. the way the icy blues and somber whites melt into the deep reds of candlelight and veins, the palette shifting as the creature’s heart learns and unlearns how to hope. the lighting hums with empathy and even the shadows seem to ache for connection.
when i reached the end credits, my heart left with the quiet miracle of choice. you do not have to forgive your father for the pain he passed down, but you can forgive him for creating you. you can break the cycles that made you suffer. you can help a stranger find their way home. you can walk out onto the snow, feel the warmth of the morning sun on your face, and—against all odds—choose to live.