“I called your name, and understood I was alone.”
Guillermo del Toro’s adaptation of Frankenstein is a gorgeously gothic feast, with sumptuous colors, dreamlike images, and a set design straight out of a dark fairytale. Balancing weighty philosophical queries with outright horror, del Toro’s gifts as a director are on full display. He’s obviously having the time of his life, and often the movie feels like a 19th century oil painting come to life (a visual knack that one can see in his other films, including the underrates Crimson Peak).
I’m always skeptical of adaptations; in my opinion, we have yet to see a truly faithful adaptation of Dracula (no, don’t point to Coppola’s flawed and weirdly uneven effort). Del Toro makes several deviations from Mary Shelley’s novel (not including Henry Clerval is an odd choice, Viktor’s familial relations are reinvented, and the interpretation of the Creature is more sympathetic than in the book); this isn’t nearly as faithful as the 1994 version. Nonetheless, it’s clearly born from love of the book. (I think there’s comparisons to be made with 1979’s Frank Langella version of Dracula, which (being based on the play rather than the novel) truncated Stoker’s novel but hit the right gothic horror notes and was a visually entrancing film).
The cinematography and costuming are just stunning: the film drips with imagery befitting gothic romanticism at its finest, including small touches like the lacy back of a dress mirroring a spinal column, and the inclusion of quotes from others in Mary Shelley’s circle like Percy and Byron. And the cast delivers roundly excellent performances, especially Oscar Isaac as Viktor Frankenstein, and Jacob Elordi as the Creature.
Recommended.
And since we’re talking about Dracula, I discovered a Romanian restaurant here in Connecticut that fully embraces it’s Vladic inspirations: the Transilvania Restaurant and Bar in East Haven. The atmosphere and food were top-notch, from goulash to paprikash, and there were plenty of overt references to Vlad Tepes, from the impaled skeletons surrounding the property to these little skewered snacks. I guess after a few hundred years, no one can say, “Too soon…”
