Review: In Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein, humanity is the real creation

The director understands something fundamental about monsters—they aren't born from darkness alone, but from the loneliness that comes when the world refuses to see your humanity. Guillermo del Toro has always possessed this rare gift of breathing soul into creatures the world would rather fear than understand, and his 2025 adaptation of Frankenstein stands as perhaps his most achingly beautiful work yet.

Oscar Isaac transforms Victor Frankenstein from a mere mad scientist into something more complex—a man consumed by grief and ambition in equal measure. You can see the weight of his choices etched into every frame he occupies. But it's Jacob Elordi as the Creature who devastates, delivering what critics are calling a career-defining performance. Elordi doesn't just play a monster; he excavates the soul trapped inside a body the world refuses to embrace. He studied Japanese butoh dance and Mongolian throat singing to capture the Creature's movements, and that dedication radiates from every gesture, every pained expression, every moment of yearning. His performance has done something unexpected. It has made audiences fall in love with a monster. Social media overflows with people confessing their emotional attachment to this creature, not despite his appearance but because of the vulnerability Elordi brings to every scene.

Mia Goth plays dual roles as both Victor's mother and Elizabeth, his brother's fiancée. Her signature lazy eye, which some directors might see as a quirk to minimise, becomes a storytelling device here. There's something unsettling yet mesmerising about her gaze—you're never quite sure where she's looking, what she's seeing. In scenes where she plays the mother, that unfocused quality suggests a woman looking into futures she'll never see. As Elizabeth, it gives her an otherworldly presence, as if she exists slightly outside the timeline of the narrative itself. Goth doesn't just inhabit these roles; she uses every physical tool at her disposal to create depth where lesser actors might simply deliver lines.

At 150 minutes, the film demands patience, but del Toro earns every moment. The structure mirrors Shelley's novel—an icebound "Prelude" followed by "Victor's Tale" and "The Creature's Tale". This dual perspective is crucial. We don't just watch Victor's descent into obsession; we live inside the Creature's awakening consciousness. We feel his first sensations, his confusion at rejection, his desperate hunger for connection. The film refuses to let us forget that this is a story of two beings, not one—creator and creation, both trapped in a dance of mutual destruction, neither can escape.

What del Toro captures with piercing clarity is how Victor, in trying to transcend the limits of life itself, unconsciously becomes a reflection of his own father. In the single flashback sequence of “Victor’s Tale,” we glimpse the roots of his control—an upbringing defined by rigid expectations and emotional distance. When Victor later stands before his own creation, demanding comprehension, obedience, and perfection, he repeats the same cold patterns he once endured. His frustration turns to rage when the Creature cannot understand his words, when it stumbles and stares back at him in confusion. The only word the Creature manages to speak—“Victor”—lands not as recognition but as accusation, echoing through the laboratory like a curse. In that moment, del Toro makes clear that the cycle of control and disappointment did not begin in the lab; it began in the home, passed from father to son, from man to monster.

The film looks absolutely stunning. Del Toro bathes scenes in amber-lit laboratories, blood-red skies, and green shadows that feel borrowed from German Expressionist cinema. Every frame could hang in a gallery. The colour palette shifts with the narrative—warm golds and ambers in Victor's early days of hope, deepening into sickly greens as his work consumes him, finally bleeding into the whites and blues of the Arctic wasteland where creator and creation meet for their final confrontation. The cinematography captures both the intimate and the epic—a close-up of the Creature's hand touching snow for the first time carries as much weight as the sweeping shots of icebergs.

Even the typography tells a story. The opening and closing credits use a Gothic font that looks hand-carved, each letter slightly uneven, as if assembled from mismatched parts—a visual echo of the Creature himself. It's a small detail, but it speaks to del Toro's commitment to ensuring every element serves the story's themes.

Alexandre Desplat's score is lyrical and emotional, weaving through scenes like a lament. The music doesn't just underscore emotion; it creates its own narrative thread, a wordless conversation between what the characters say and what they truly feel. During the Creature's solitary wanderings, the score becomes sparse, haunting—single notes that stretch into silence, mirroring his isolation.

The dialogue crackles with intelligence and pain. Characters speak in measured, thoughtful language that feels both elevated and deeply human. The Creature's speech, as he learns language, evolves from guttural sounds to eloquent philosophy, and you witness that transformation not just in what he says but how he says it. There's a scene where he describes his existence that left me breathless—the way he articulates the specific agony of being conscious but unwanted, alive but unloved. The language never feels stilted or archaic; instead, it captures how people sound when they're wrestling with impossible emotions and trying to make themselves understood.

Del Toro departs from Shelley's novel in significant ways—Elizabeth is now Victor's brother William's fiancée rather than Victor's childhood companion, which shifts the family dynamics. The film also moves faster through certain plot points, compressing timelines that Shelley took chapters to develop. But these changes serve del Toro's vision. He's less interested in strict adaptation than in capturing the novel's emotional truth—the horror of creating life without accepting responsibility for it, the tragedy of a being who wants only to be seen and loved.

Del Toro has described this not as a horror movie but as "an incredibly emotional story", and that's exactly what he delivers. Yes, there are moments of gothic terror—the reanimation scene is visceral and disturbing—but the real horror is quieter. It's watching the Creature's hope die each time someone flees from his appearance. It's seeing Victor realise too late what he's done. It's understanding that both characters are trapped in a tragedy of their own making.

The film isn't perfect. The pacing drags in places, and at 150 minutes, some scenes could have been tightened. Occasionally, the film becomes too literal in its messaging, spelling out themes that would resonate more powerfully if left implicit. And while I appreciate del Toro's distinctive vision, purists who want a more faithful adaptation of Shelley's text might feel frustrated by his departures.

Here's the thing, though—while the film is available on Netflix now, this is a work that truly demands the theatrical experience. The sweeping landscapes, the intricate production design, Desplat's soaring score—all of it deserves the immersive power of a cinema. The gothic beauty, the rich colour work, the subtle performances—they all lose something essential when compressed onto smaller screens. This is a film meant to wash over audiences in waves, to envelop them completely. Watching it at home means missing layers of detail that del Toro and his team laboured over. If there's any possibility of catching it in a theatre, it's absolutely worth seeking out that experience.

Del Toro has spent his career finding humanity in the inhuman. His Pan's Labyrinth showed us that monsters can be gentler than men. The Shape of Water proved that love transcends the boundaries we draw between species. His Pinocchio reminded us that being real isn't about being flesh and blood—it's about having a heart.

Frankenstein makes viewers think about how we all create versions of people in our minds, then rage when they refuse to match our design. Victor wanted life without consequence. The Creature wanted acceptance without condition. Both were impossible dreams, yet both feel painfully familiar. We are all, in some way, both Victor and his creation—makers of our own isolations, yearning for connections we don't know how to build.