The films of the Mexican director Guillermo del Toro are not for everyone. Those with an aversion to melodrama, or gothic fairytales, or steam punk, may wish to get their cinematic kicks elsewhere. Most recently, the director of Pan’s Labyrinth, The Shape of Water and Hellboy has unleashed his world-building prowess on Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein – the apex of his film-making ambition, apparently – in a lavish movie adaptation streaming on Netflix from today. It has all the hallmarks of a del Toro work, from the sumptuous production design to the gothic sensibilities. Like I say, not for everyone. But if there’s one person it definitely is for, it’s Oscar Isaac.
In Frankenstein, Isaac plays Victor Frankenstein, whose own wild, overreaching ambition leads him to create a super-sized humanoid monster, played by 6’5” actor Jacob Elordi, out of discarded body parts. The scale of the project is not by any means a stretch for this versatile actor, who’s dabbled in the big, bold worlds of Star Wars and X Men and Dune. But the work for which he’s best known, from his breakthrough lead role in the Coen Brothers’ Inside Llewyn Davis to the HBO remake of Scenes From a Marriage show him to be an actor at the quieter more cerebral end of the scale (certainly when I interviewed him for the cover of Esquire in 2017, that was the vibe he was giving off).
If that’s what we think of him, however, clearly no one’s told Oscar Isaac that, as in Frankenstein he is giving a performance that’s so gloriously overblown and big, he’s giving Elordi’s monster a healthy run for his money. Isaac has a good thinky reason for that – he has explained that he sees Victor and his monster as somewhat interchangeable, or the latter even perhaps a mental projection conjured up by the former – but for the general movie-goer the effect is just a seasoned actor having a really excellent time.
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And how does Isaac spend his time in this movie? Well, the narrative is loosely faithful to the book, telling the tale of a magnetic young scientist who seeks to make his name by inventing a revivification process to give life to inanimate flesh, only for him to abuse his own creation, deny the monster his humanity, and suffer the dire consequences of his cruelty. There are bookending scenes on a ship in the Arctic, which is true-ish to the original, and del Toro has also taken on the book’s shift in narrative perspective – first Victor, then the surprisingly eloquent monster – which provides some useful tonal counterpoint.
Elordi, in an elaborate white-and-blue body stocking and bandage pants, is doing the earnest emotional graft here, conveying the extremities of pain, both physical and mental, that the monster is being made to endure. Mia Goth, as Victor’s sister-in-law, Elizabeth, provides some ethereal empathy for the monster – and romantic hopes for Victor – as well as modelling some devastatingly excellent frocks. Christoph Waltz, as Victor’s wealthy patron, brings some extra narrative momentum and a pleasing horror reveal.
Isaac, on the other hand, is plugging improbable electrical components into unlikely machines and making legless torsos wiggle and scream, or dragging body parts across blood-slicked floors, or convulsing with a fever induced by his own moral turpitude. It’s not totally new narrative ground – let’s not forget that in Alex Garland’s Deus Ex Machina he played a crazed tech CEO who invents a humanoid servant who has other ideas. But for an actor who doesn’t always get the chance to go Full Ham, it’s a delightfully unhinged performance that takes full advantage of the range in “deranged”. We’re here for it in every way.
‘Frankenstein’ is streaming on Netflix now
