Frankenstein ‘25 is the highly anticipated gothic tragedy by Guillermo Del Toro. I don’t know why this man has an obsession with inanimate things being brought to life, like with his animated retelling of Pinocchio, but he is damn good at writing stories about them, so I won’t judge. Although the story of Frankenstein is usually considered horror, most likely being of its gothic setting, a tragedy seems to fit the story a lot better.
Frankenstein explores, in depth, the relationship between a monster and its creator; diving deep into the cycle of abuse and tragedy that, more than ever before, paints Frankenstein and The Creature and father and son. And in case there is any confusion, The Creature is not named Frankenstein, his name is The Monster, and Frankenstein refers to Dr. Victor Frankenstein, the creator of The Monster.
The movie is set in gothic 19th century Europe, where shadows are deep and pockets are deeper. The movie does something rarely done and shows us Frankenstein and The Monster’s perspective non-linearly, meaning instead of cutting from one perspective to another, each of them get their own section of the movie to themselves, allowing us to learn about them each separately so we can understand what they mean to each other.
I call this a tragedy instead of horror, because the movie doesn’t scare you in a horrifying way, but instead, a saddening one. It’s a story about the trauma of both of these men and how it affects their entire worlds. The Creature, in my eyes, represents positive growth, in the fact he confronts his trauma and then wants closure and to move on. Dr. Frankenstein, on the other hand, represents negative growth, as his childhood scars drove him to become the mad doctor obsessed with recreating life and ends with his own tragedy.
Victor is a character which has always been overshadowed by the looming presence of The Creature in the past, but there is no confusion this time, with Oscar Issac giving an internally transformative performance as Franekstein. Jacob Elordi deserves equal praise for his performance as The Creature, bringing pathos and intelligence to a monster usually played as a beefed up vegan zombie.
I do not want to spoil this movie for you, as I believe it would only discourage you from going to see it. I will tell you how the movie ends though, and unusually it’s with a quote, which is from Lord Byron’s Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage: “And thus the heart will break, yet brokenly live on.”
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