Frankenstein

Guillermo del Toro really loves making his female characters have sexual relations with things that are not quite human.  Guillermo del Toro's adaptation of Frankenstein was absolutely incredibly beyond words. I feel as if I don't even know where to start because everything just had me in such disbelief for how amazingly done it was. Every part of this film is absolute magic and that's thanks to pretty much every person who worked on this project. Through watching the movie the audience can truly tell how much passion each and every one of those individuals had for this project. Each scene shows how incredibly well thought out each detail was even down to something that may seem like just a simple family's home. I was so so impressed with how rich this movie is with such compelling dichotomies. The utilization of light to represent the innocence and kindness of one being vs the dark representing the roughness and anger of another one was executed perfectly. The scenes with Victor and his creation are mostly in the dark to heighten the feeling of hostility and anger between the two, yet when Elizabeth is with him the scenes are lighter even if only by a little. Whenever we do see the interactions with Victor and The Creature, there's movement in the scene that is a display of how the power is shifting sides. The camera angles also do an incredible job of showcasing this. In the scenes where The Creature is at the family's home on the farm, the darkness is an example of how the absence of love can darken a person and how dark the general feeling of loneliness is. . I love love loved how at the beginning The Creature's skin is white to symbolize the innocence that comes with a new life, but then as we go on throughout the movie it becomes bluer to show his journey of embracing his experience with being both living and dead at the same time. The final shot of his silhouette against the sunset horizon was a beautiful display of how he has accepted to try to live in a harmonic balance of the two. I was FLOORED with the detail in the changes to The Creature's costume design. The way he is given dark clothes against his white skin is just such a nice detail of showing how the abuse from Victor and the trauma he endured will always be a part of him. Especially in the end, as he is learning how to embrace his life of not being able to truly die, when his costume shifts into a representation of the grim reaper yet underneath his skin is still pale and blue. ASTONISHING. There is also a detail I can't go without noting was The Creature's interactions with the animals around him and how he was so understood by them, because he is viewed just the same. They are able to sympathize with each other at their first interaction because The Creature himself is almost a wounded animal himself. Jacob Elordi's physicality during the entirety of the movie was incredible and honestly my jaw was dropped considering my only real memorable thought of him is in Euphoria when he's yelling at Sydney Sweeney about how being crazy is not a good thing. Oscar Isaac is also incredible, but that goes without saying and Mia Goth does an incredible job in any scene she is in, but Elordi and Isaac are absolutely the showstoppers. The scene that really had my jaw dropped by their performances was in the end, where even after all the trauma and hurt Victor caused him, The Creature still is able to meet him with the empathy and kindness Victor never did. I also just really loved the subtle detail towards the end at the wedding when Victor is getting angry his dialogue is shortened and it's more so grunts that emulate how The Creature was at the beginning. The physicality from Elordi being hunched over as a symbol of the grim reaper and the action of the kiss to resemble the kiss of death was phenomenal. The bittersweet full-circle moment of Victor telling his creation to say his name, like he had made him do- it's what "Call me by Your name" thinks it's giving. Oh and did I mention how amazing the soundtrack is, it elevated the emotion and weight of every scene perfectly. So, flowers to the sound department. TLDR: Guillermo del Toro's reimagining of Frankenstein is incredibly well done. It's a beautiful portrayal of how we jump to conclusions and place judgements on people without giving them a chance. The representation of how more often than not the things we assume are monsters are not, and rather us instead is magnificent. This film is a beautiful journey of how in the end we all really want the same thing-to be a part of a family and not be alone, or at least just have even one companion to share life with.