It takes Mary Shelley just two lines of the first chapter in her classic 1818 Gothic novel, “Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus,” to mention the titular mad doctor’s father. The book itself doesn’t focus heavily on the relationship between Victor Frankenstein and his father, but Shelley took influence from her own father, who was himself a famous novelist.
Fatherhood becomes key to understanding Guillermo del Toro’s recent 2025 film adaptation of Shelley’s novel, which premiered at the Toronto Film Festival in September. The movie itself, which stars Oscar Isaac as The Mad Scientist and Jacob Elordi as The Creature, is faithful to the original text, but hones in on themes of abandonment and neglect of family.
The film’s 149-minute runtime could be interpreted as a notable flaw, but the extended first half of the movie, told from Victor’s perspective, details much of his paternal neglect and the cycles that perpetuate themselves with that neglect. Victor’s father (played by Charles Dance of “Game of Thrones” fame, a prime example of an uncaring paternal figure) shows his firstborn very little love, leading to a strained relationship between the mad scientist and his creature.
The real tragedy of the film, though, comes from the presence, or lack thereof, of Mia Goth. The British actor plays an entrancing dual performance of Victor’s mother and her sister in-law, the latter of whom is a subject of affection. Goth’s command of her characters makes both of their deaths excruciating; a symbolic reckoning of when a father figure shows a lack of empathy or concern for their loved ones.
The truly expert performance is undeniably Elordi as The Creature. Elordi, who launched to fame with his struggling alpha male persona on the HBO show “Euphoria,” brings the right amount of pathos, while still holding an ability to unnerve and capture the audience’s undivided attention. Elordi equally understands how to play the initial innocence and subsequent increased intelligence of The Creature.
While Elordi’s performance serves as the highlight of “Frankenstein,” the movie’s visuals are undoubtedly the lowlight. Generally, del Toro has incredibly high standards for the visuals and look of his pictures (the underwater shots in “The Shape of Water” or the Gothic detail of “Crimson Peak,” for instance). But the CGI in “Frankenstein” comes up laughably short, notably a scene with wolves where the vicious animals look egregiously fake.
The extreme positives and negatives from del Toro and his actors create an uneven experience, and the running time doesn’t help in that regard. His adaptation of “Frankenstein” has enough of a personal touch to be worthy of some merit — he still has the storytelling chops that tackle the darkness inside man’s hearts, highlighted by the father-and-son relationship between Isaac and Elordi’s characters — but if del Toro wants to keep the attention of audiences, he will have to craft more imaginative visual worlds. In that sense, “Frankenstein” was terrifyingly drab.
