Del Toro’s movie adaptation of Shelley’s Frankenstein has been receiving mixed reviews. It seems the movie is simultaneously too big, and too small for its audience. Most praise his abundance and generosity when it comes to visuals, clothing, make-up and setting, while some find it overbearing for the actual “message” of the movie. The film has also been described as too long or even boring in parts. As if its length didn’t match its depth. Thematically people say it falls flat, isn’t faithful to the novel, or is just too much.

Now, we have to understand that Frankenstein has been one of Del Toro’s dream projects
since forever. The movie has been living inside him, fermenting, for a long time. Making this
rendition as much Del Toro’s as it is Shelley’s. In an interview with BBC Radio 1 the director says this movie is more him than he is himself. His personal ties to one of the main themes, dysfunctional father son relationships, seep into the movie. Oscar Isaac re-tells (in an interview with BBc Radio 1) how he asked to cut out some lines from the final scene and Del Toro asked him to say them, as they were the things he didn’t get to say to his father before he passed.

The abundance in this film is certainly striking, but it fits the novel’s emotional grandeur. It captures the horror and the beauty of the world, in what I think, is a necessary juxtaposition. One brings out the other, and they can’t be understood separately. The monster can’t be understood without Dr. Frankenstein’s utter disgust, or without Elizabeth’s compassion. The same way the movie’s ugliness, horror and goriness can’t be understood without its expansive shots, extravagant clothing and grandiose and beautiful sets. Like put in the telegraphs review of the film, “over two and a half hours, the pop-gothic intensity can get a little much…but you wouldn’t necessarily want to lose any of it.”(telegraph) The novel, like this movie, is an explosion of emotion and imagery, it overwhelms the
reader with its variety of narratives, at first epistolary and later moving from master to monster. It’s rich in references; most prominently to one of the most studied pieces of literature ever, “Paradise Lost”, and bursting with themes, but more so questions. “Del Toro was drawn” to all of it; “to the pathos, the tragedy, the strange beauty of the tale”(new york times), and his extravagant style in my opinion honours it, it doesn’t drown it.

His creature is complex; Del Toro takes some liberties as to the timeline of the monster,
especially when he depicts him chained in the Doctors tower. This does not happen in the original novel, however, it allows for what Elordi describes as a monster who is a fleshed out character, and not a mere prop (Variety: youtube interview with elordi and Del Toro). “Elordi moves like a baby, then an animal, then a man and then a menace” (NY times article), and this is what makes his beast so much more horrific. The beast has to “become” human, before he can be truly evil. This fact hits the viewer in the face like a bucket of ice. And the cold lingers.

Elordi described the set, and making of this movie as “a real, human magic” (BBC Radio 1).
This strikes as a big juxtaposition with what the movie is about, but I think in a way it is what makes this story so hauntingly beautiful and tragic. Creation is in many ways a sort of magic, whether that is because the result was never meant to happen, or because it is different than what one imagined. One’s creation simultaneously belongs to oneself and exists on its own, and one is responsible for it but also relinquishes control once its birthing occurs. This story is about the tragedy and inevitability of life, and art is how we sustain it, at least for Del Toro.

So, maybe the movie didn’t reach its audience’s expectations (variety article), but that doesn’t matter. People make art because it gives them life, because they don’t know how to exist without it, not because they want to meet anyone’s expectations. And with his movie Del Toro invites us to witness a piece of his art, to be a spectator to his life and his creation, and to allow art to approach, make an imprint, without the barrier of expectation.

Guillermo Del Toro in conversation with Ken Sanders: Frank… | Flickr