Merciless Life: Guillermo del Toro’s ‘Frankenstein’ Finds Beauty in the Broken [REVIEW]

This review contains spoilers for ‘Frankenstein’ (2025).

Few filmmakers working today love monsters the way Guillermo del Toro does. He doesn’t fear them, pity them, or try to redeem them — he loves them. In every film, from Pan’s Labyrinth to Crimson Peak, del Toro builds worlds that are achingly, hauntingly beautiful, but never hollow. His images shimmer with the sacred and the grotesque in equal measure. Beneath the intricate design and painterly light, there’s always a pulse, something human and hurting. Frankenstein is no exception; in fact, it might be his most personal act of devotion yet.

Frankenstein feels less like a film and more like a cathedral built from grief, stitched together by tenderness, and set ablaze by the unbearable need to be seen. From its first moments, it’s clear that del Toro isn’t just adapting Mary Shelley’s story, but rather communing with it, holding it in his hands like something precious and fragile and terribly real.

Every frame of this film is a testament to his love of monsters as beings of astonishing beauty and complexity. Del Toro doesn’t shy away from the grotesque, but revels in it. The stitched flesh, the scars, the twitching muscles of the Creature are horrific, yes, but they are also achingly human, imbued with curiosity, frustration, and an almost spiritual longing. In del Toro’s hands, horror becomes reverence. Each shadow, each artfully draped cloth, each flicker of candlelight communicates devotion to the story, to the world, to the very idea of what it means to be alive.

The Romantic poet John Keats, in an 1820 letter to his dear friend Charles Brown, says, “Is there another life? Shall I awake and find all this a dream? There must be, we cannot be created for this sort of suffering,” and those words feel as though they were written for this Creature, for Frankenstein, for the audience watching as a man wrests life from death and death from life. Del Toro’s camera lingers on these details not as spectacle, but as sermon: suffering is real, beauty is real, and in the intertwining of both, the film’s heart beats strongest.

Setting the Stage of Science and Philosophy

The first true glimpse of the Creature arrives in 1855, not as a fully realized monster, but as a spark of foundational obsession in Victor Frankenstein’s mind. In the grand hall of the Royal College of Surgeons in Edinburgh, Victor (Oscar Isaac) demonstrates his experiments with reanimating dead tissue using electrical currents. The room hums with curiosity, skepticism, and the faint tang of fear. It is here that the philosophical heart of the film begins to beat as science and creation entwine, daring to trespass where humanity perhaps should not.

Though phrenology — the pseudoscience that claimed the very character of man could be mapped through skull shapes and bumps — had largely fallen out of favor by this time, its shadow lingers. In Frankenstein’s world, bodies are systems to be understood, measured, and manipulated. It is Christoph Waltz’s Henrich Harlander, Victor’s patron, who, in a quiet voice, asks, “Of all the parts that make the man, which part holds the soul?” In a single question, del Toro sets the stage for one of the film’s central inquiries: if life can be constructed from pieces of other lives, what becomes of consciousness, personality, and the soul?

These moments are not just exposition; del Toro stages them like a performance of both audacity and devotion. The filtering lights catch on metal instruments and polished wood, and the hum of electricity suggests both life and threat. The Creature exists first in imagination and in the fervent gaze of a man willing to challenge God. It is a moment that perfectly captures del Toro’s genius, showing how horror and beauty coexist while every visual choice carries meaning and hints at the wonder, terror, and heartbreak ahead.

Humanity in Stitched Flesh

From the moment the Creature is truly birthed into existence, Jacob Elordi commands the screen with a performance that is at once tender, terrifying, and heartbreakingly human. Del Toro’s direction ensures that we see the Creature not as a monster in the conventional sense, but as a being of curiosity, discontent, and moral intelligence. Early on, his movements are almost toddler-like — unsure and experimental. Every gesture conveys thought and feeling, allowing us to understand his frustration with his own limitations and his longing to engage with a world that largely rejects him.

Del Toro overlays this awakening with religious and symbolic imagery that heightens the Creature’s tragic grandeur. In his first moments of life, the Creature bears the wound of Longinus, a crown of thorns, and a red-purple cloth draped across his shoulders. As Victor whispers, “It is done,” the scene evokes the death of Jesus, framing the Creature as both martyr and miracle, a living icon of human obsession and divine consequence. It is a moment where horror and reverence collide — the grotesque made sacred, the sacred made intimate.

What makes Elordi’s performance so compelling is how much of the Creature’s humanity comes without words. His fascination with nature, his respect for life, and his gradual comprehension of social interaction reveal a purity and curiosity that make the humans around him seem all the more monstrous. Through him, del Toro asks yet another one of the central questions of his film: are humans inherently cruel, or does society’s structure — its neglect, fear, and vanity — create monsters? 

There’s a delicate balance between tragedy and humor as well. The Creature’s awkward explorations, his attempts to understand his environment, and the visual comedy of early missteps add levity without undermining the narrative weight. Del Toro understands that horror is most poignant when paired with vulnerability, that the grotesque is terrifying precisely because it is touched by humanity, and the Creature embodies that truth in every frame.

Victor Frankenstein: Genius, Obsession, and Hotness

If the Creature is the beating heart of the film, Oscar Isaac’s Victor Frankenstein is its brilliant, chaotic mind. Isaac delivers a performance that is at once commanding, charming, and terrifying. He embodies a man consumed by genius and obsession, yet never fully untethered from humanity, even as he flirts with the edges of moral disaster. His speech at the Royal College of Surgeons early in the film is nothing short of wondrous. Radical, articulate, and utterly fearless in the face of skepticism, Isaac’s Victor exudes the arrogance of a man who believes he is rewriting the laws of life itself and confident in his imminent success.

And yes, we absolutely have to talk about the bathtub scene. Not just because it’s narratively crucial, but because it’s Oscar Isaac in a bathtub, lounging like a brooding, dripping god while contemplating the creation of life. He drifts there in quiet thought, steam curling around him, before a sudden jolt of inspiration makes him spring upright — water sloshing around him and onto the floor, running to the mirror to inspect his own naked reflection and the anatomical placement of the machinery with obsessive intensity. It’s absurd, it’s intimate, and it is so very, very hot. Isaac turns existential horror and scientific mania into a full-body display of devastating allure. Honestly, the movie would make less sense without it.

Isaac’s performance also reinforces one of the film’s key themes: the duality of man as both creator and destroyer. Frankenstein nurtures his creation, yet that nurturing is tied to pride, vanity, and fear of responsibility. His brilliance is inseparable from his ego; his admiration for the Creature is inseparable from his desire for control. In Isaac’s hands, Victor becomes a tragic figure, one both horrifying and magnetic.

Del Toro uses these moments to explore masculinity and the consequences of unchecked ambition. Frankenstein’s obsession is framed as both heroic and terrifying given that his intellect awes us, while his moral blindness unsettles us. Through Isaac, the film asks us another set of questions: can genius exist without recklessness? Can creation exist without abandonment? Can we love what we create without destroying it in the process?

Women, Red, and Fate

Del Toro’s eye for detail extends far beyond the grotesque or the scientific; he infuses the world with symbolism so precise it feels almost ritualistic. Nowhere is this more apparent than in his treatment of the women in Frankenstein. Mia Goth plays both Claire and Elizabeth, two women whose lives are marked by tragedy, fate, and the relentless presence of red.

Claire’s first appearance in a red dress and flowing veil is immediately striking — the fabric trailing behind her neck like ribbons of blood, a visual harbinger of mortality. Later, Elizabeth’s elaborate necklaces and red adornments echo that initial imagery, culminating on her wedding day when the blood from a gunshot stains her white dress, recalling Claire’s red gown in both color and doom. By casting Goth in both roles, del Toro emphasizes the cyclical nature of loss and the repetition of human suffering, suggesting that the fates of these women are sealed not by themselves, but by the men around them and the world they inhabit.

This red motif is not just aesthetic, but thematic. Del Toro contrasts the nurturing potential of women with the brutality of men — Frankenstein can create, yet he often shirks the emotional labor required to care for his creation. His genius is celebrated, yet the consequences of his experiments fall on others, particularly Elizabeth whose life intersects tragically with his obsession. It is a sharp reminder that creation without responsibility is violence, and brilliance without empathy is monstrous.

Amid these heavy themes, del Toro punctuates his vision with darkly comic moments that provide necessary relief. The logistics of body acquisition, the awkward yet absurdly human missteps in Frankenstein’s research, and the confessional scene where he quietly follows Elizabeth into the booth are glimpses of humor that reinforce the humanity in the horror.

Connection and Loneliness

At its core, del Toro’s Frankenstein is not just a story about creation and horror, but a meditation on the desperate, fragile need for human connection. The film repeatedly reminds us that love, empathy, and understanding are as vital as life itself. As Elizabeth beautifully observes, “To be lost and to be found…that is the lifespan of love.” That sentiment resonates through every scene, from the Creature’s tentative explorations of the world to Frankenstein’s fraught relationships with those around him.

Del Toro highlights how isolation shapes monstrosity. The Creature, despite being composed of human parts, is initially innocent, curious, and empathetic. It is society’s rejection, fear, and cruelty that warps his existence, reminding us that humans are often the true monsters. Meanwhile, Victor’s own loneliness — born of obsession and genius — demonstrates that isolation is not only external; it can be self-imposed, a product of ambition and pride.

In a world increasingly connected by technology yet starved of intimacy, del Toro’s meditation feels startlingly contemporary. The film asks some of its most urgent questions here: what does it mean to be truly seen by another? How can we live fully without touch, care, and meaningful connection? These questions linger long after the credits roll, echoing with the quiet horror of isolation in the modern age.

Critiques and Closing Reflection

Even a film this meticulously crafted is not without its small imperfections. One area where Frankenstein could have gone further is in its framing quotes. The film opens and closes with lines from Lord Byron, lines that are evocative, thematically appropriate, and beautifully written. Byron’s words echo the Romantic fascination with mortality, obsession, and the sublime, but they also highlight a missed opportunity. Mary Shelley, after all, is the creator of this world, the mother of science fiction itself. Her voice could have bookended the film, reminding viewers that it was a woman who first dared to ask what happens when man plays God, and centering her would have amplified the resonance of her inquiry.

Another small imperfection lies in the ending. While emotionally satisfying, the final moments between Frankenstein and the Creature feel somewhat rushed. A few more beats of direct conversation could have deepened the emotional catharsis, letting the audience linger in the raw intimacy and moral reckoning of their relationship. These are small quibbles, however, in a film that otherwise exemplifies del Toro’s genius.

Ultimately, Frankenstein is a testament to del Toro’s lifelong devotion to monsters, not as spectacles of fear, but as reflections of our humanity. The Creature is innocent and curious; man is often cruel and capricious. The film celebrates beauty and horror simultaneously, crafting a world where sorrow and awe coexist in every frame. It reminds us, painfully and beautifully, that love, connection, and empathy are the truest measures of life. And in the hands of a master like del Toro, even stitched flesh and haunted eyes can teach us how to live and how to love.

You can watch Frankenstein (2025) in select theaters and on Netflix beginning November 7th.

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