Frankenstein or a modern-day del Toro

      "Thank God, I'm an Atheist" — Luis Buñuel

      I won't retell the plot this time — Mary Shelley's story of the genius Victor Frankenstein and his Monster is unlikely to be unfamiliar to anyone. Briefly: the novel Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus is canonical — especially in cinema. In particular, thanks to this story we can say we got the modern horror genre in the form we know it. Frankenstein's story formed the basis for the second film in the Universal "Monsters" series, which, bluntly put, paved the way for the genre into mainstream cinema.

      Anyway, let's skip the other banalities and get to the discussion.

      Warning: spoilers!

      As a reader

      That the film is not a literal adaptation of the novel is clear from the very beginning — del Toro turned Victor's family into a "typical bourgeois unit" with a despotic father and a loving mother who die early on, leaving him alone with his younger brother William. All of this is completely contrary to the book.

      In the novel the hero's family was also wealthy and successful, but loving and supportive. Victor was raised with love and his mercurial interest in the sciences was encouraged. His father didn't force him to become a surgeon, didn't beat him. In the novel, before entering university where he took up natural science, Victor leaned toward mathematics.

      They debased Victor's character to such an extent that throughout the film you basically don't understand: what am I supposed to feel while watching? Understanding? Compassion? In the novel Victor was a classic romantic hero who, giving in to his own vanity, created the Monster — and paid for it with everything. You worry for him, for his fate; you want things to end well. Del Toro's hero is an outright something-in-Elvish, someone you not only don't empathize with—you don't even want to look at him.

      Another crucial character in the story was Elizabeth. In the novel she grew up with Victor. She was not his brother's wife and certainly not some baron's niece.

      Their relationship with Victor was presented as an example of sincere, genuine love, the very thing the Monster asked for in the novel. In the film Elizabeth is simply unnecessary. She talked to the Monster a couple of times, got a note from him — and fell into deep feelings? What a load of nonsense! Whether before her death or after it, it's unclear why she exists in the film at all. Why did they try to show their strained relationship with the cinematic Victor if in the end they had nothing anyway? Why?

      William, the younger brother, is also useless in the film. In the book he, as a child, became the Monster's first victim. His death demonstrated the Monster's anger and resentment, which he poured onto his creator.

      In the film William contributes nothing to the plot. Absolutely nothing. The same goes for his wife Elizabeth. If you remove them, the plot wouldn't change at all.

      You can throw Christoph Waltz's syphilitic character into the same pile. Okay, at least there was motivation there. But the way it was handled and shown so rudely…

      The conflict between the characters was simply flushed down the toilet. In the novel all of this is filled with a huge amount of symbolism — the relationship of creator and his rejected creation, father and son, God and man. The depth that was in the novel turned into a dirty puddle of a Netflix blockbuster.

      All of this could have been fixed by giving the characters even a little depth. I've already written about Victor; I have things to say about the Monster.

      In del Toro's film Frankenstein's creation is just a drifter. Seriously. It's hard to sympathize with him because none of his inner experiences were shown.

      For God's sake! When you read about the Monster's fate in the novel, you cry your eyes out: how he is "born" and immediately met with hatred, how he's bullied and rejected by everyone around him, how, essentially, a child is instantly rejected by his creator. And the moment in the cottage where he lived and watched the family? All of that could have been shown. How the Monster learns to speak, to read, to learn love, kindness… Yes, the film showed that he learned, but it did not show what he felt.

      Why couldn't they show the Monster reading Milton's Paradise Lost and realizing that he too has a Creator? Why don't they show us the hero's internal transformation?!

      The whole internal conflict of the Monster, which after being rejected again gives in to hatred and begins killing Victor's loved ones, is built on exactly that.

      If you want to watch a worthy screen adaptation of the novel Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus, watch Kenneth Branagh's Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (1994) — starring him and Robert De Niro. Yes, it's not literal either, with its own additions, but it can show all the sensuality and depth that were originally embedded in this story.

      Rating as a reader — 2/5

      As a viewer

      The film is indeed beautiful — as, in principle, are all of Guillermo del Toro's films. It's a colorful fairy tale that's a pleasure to look at. Interest in the plot, because of the flatness of the characters, disappears by the middle.

      Overall, it's more than fine to put it on in the background while having something tasty. But if by some chance you've just emerged from a bunker or the world of cable TV and haven't seen del Toro's films, you shouldn't start with Frankenstein — better direct your attention to Pan's Labyrinth (16+) or The Shape of Water (18+).

      Rating as a viewer — 3.5/5