Frankenstein (2025)

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I'm not gonna talk about the novel, I read it when I was 14 and remember nothing of the plot. I remember the very lonely and isolating feeling the Creature has throughout the book. The film does not portray that angst as deeply, and the focus is on relationships (as it is with films). The same could be said about Interview with the Vampire book vs series version.

The creature is a pitiful monster in the human world. The audience's empathy is on his side. He does not fit into a family and does not fit into society. But he is one with nature, unlike his creator. He is the underdog, the abandoned child, the misunderstood monster. He is my friend, he is me. The Creature is portrayed by Jacob Elordi, and he gives life to a monster who is both adorable and at some times scary. 

Family relationships are at the core of the film. The father and the son, the creator and the creature. The mother and the lover, women who are not main characters in the story but change the trajectory of both Frankenstein and the Creature. Like in Interview with the Vampire, there is the dynamic of "you made me a monster in a human world and thus gave me all this suffering i didn't ask for". The film has been very much read as an allegory of an abusive family and the cycle of violence, which Guillermo del Toro actually confirmed is his vision of the story. 

Victor Frankenstein, the hubris of the western/white man. His delusions funded by slavery and war. The Creature is built from men fallen in war. He is made from the skin and suffering of the common man. It could be said that the film comments how Western science and progress is possible because of exploitation.

To me, Victor Frankenstein is also a monster, he seems inhumane, not meaning only his selfishness but also his isolation from rest of society as well, he believes himself a genius above others and thinks he can act like God. The creator and the creature, both outside humanity in their own ways.

The film's ending is very beautiful and hopeful.