After sitting at home watching Guillermo Del Toro’s newest film Frankenstein, I realized pretty quickly that this is a film that I should be watching in a theatre.

While the film did spend around three weeks in select cinemas throughout Canada and the United States, the short theatrical window does the film a disservice.

The film, which stars Oscar Isaac and Jacob Elordi, is the latest adaptation of Mary Shelley’s 1818 novel Frankenstein.

This retelling of the iconic horror novel is split into two parts: one told through the eyes of Isaac’s Victor Frankenstein and the other through Elordi’s Creature. However, before the viewers are taken on a journey through Frankenstein’s memories, there is an epic prologue to witness.

The establishing shot, a beautiful landscape of snow and ice, shows a Danish ship frozen solid on its way to the North Pole. As the crew picks away at the ice, they find an injured Frankenstein in the distance. The scene then erupts in mayhem as the Creature comes to find its creator.

This opening sequence is brutal and violent and demanded my attention. Elordi is unrecognizable as Frankenstein’s monster as he rips and tears through the crew members. I know these words sound terrifying and that's because they are. The scene does not hold back and sets the tone for the amazing two-and-a-half-hour journey I was about to take (though it doesn’t feel like two and a half hours).

After some improvisation from the crew, they are able to sink the monster into the water to create a few moments of peace to regroup. The time it takes for the Creature to find them again allows the film to start its first part. 

Part one is a collection of memories from Frankenstein as he tells the origin of this monster to the captain of the ship. The viewer is taken on a dark and harrowing journey through Frankenstein’s trauma as a child which is deeply personal and emotional.

Amidst these memories I found some of this year’s most breathtaking cinematography, and this is only within the first half hour of the film. Coming from a family of wealth, Frankenstein grows up in a huge manor which allows Del Toro lots of room to play around in different spaces such as the ballroom or the dining area.

As the story moves on, Frankenstein grows up and we see a clean-shaven Isaac at the beginning of his experiments. If the movie wasn’t interesting enough already, I found that once we see a bare-faced Isaac (who is possibly giving a career-best performance I might add), we have reached the pinnacle of this film.

Isaac gives a layered and phenomenal performance of a doctor slipping into madness through his grief and ambition. I couldn’t help but feel sympathy for his character despite the bad choices he made. Oscar winner Christoph Waltz joins the star-studded cast as Henrich Harlander who funds Frankenstein’s experiment and seems to be the one person who understands Frankenstein. By extent of this character we are also introduced to his niece Elizabeth, played by recent horror icon Mia Goth. 

The interesting aspects of her character come from the admiration and distractions she causes to Frankenstein. To add to the drama, she is engaged to Frankenstein’s younger brother William. This dynamic creates an interesting side story to follow which adds layers outside of the creation of the monster. As Frankenstein finally makes his advance on Elizabeth, he is rejected which is a tender moment that left me sympathetic but also content knowing she’s engaged to his brother.

What’s exciting here with Isaac, is that he has created a character who isn’t necessarily the greatest person, but still has charming aspects that keep you almost rooting for him. If you know the basics of this classic story, you know that he won’t end up a great person, but the complex performance given by Isaac keeps you on the edge of your seat.

After these side stories start to wrap up, the birth of the monster arrives. The tower given to Frankenstein by Henrich to do his experiments in is menacing and epic in scale (and filmed in Toronto). This is clearly where Del Toro has the most fun. Every single shot in this sequence has a million things to look at. I found myself looking at the machines, then the lights on the machines. I have only watched this film once and I can already tell the replay value it has because I couldn’t catch everything I wanted to in the time the scenes allowed.

Rain is one of my favourite things in life. It is almost its own character and that shows in every film that has a rainy scene. Del Toro does not hold back on using rain and lightning to really sell this scene. The rain pours down and creates a sense of dread while lightning bursts all around adding even more flavour to this part of the story.

Once the monster is born, Elordi is able to shine. Having his start in another Netflix original film, The Kissing Booth, not many people (myself included) expected such a raw performance from him as the Creature. I appreciated his role as Elvis in Sofia Coppola’s Priscilla, but was admittedly sad when he replaced Andrew Garfield in this film.Thankfully, I was wrong and he gave a career defining performance.

Elordi does a perfect job at every point in the monster’s journey. He acts like a newborn baby when he is first shown on screen, before adding more layers to the older years of his character. Once the monster breaks through the ship in present time, interrupting Frankenstein’s story, he declares his time to tell his side – starting part two. 

To me, the best part of the film has ended by now. Don’t get me wrong, part two is great but I think the heart of the story comes from part one. This second part feels a little bit slower but serves as a fantastic character study. The Creature finds an old man who treats him right. The important part of this section is that he has found a true father figure to rely on. Unfortunately, the man is killed by wolves leaving the Creature alone again.

Again, I understand the importance of this section and the way it connects the film showing the Creature’s own father issues that Frankenstein passes on to him is brilliantly done. This also allows the story to wrap up in the best way possible.

After the creature tells his story, there is a sweet moment of forgiveness that he extends to his “true” father Frankenstein. I was on the edge of my seat expecting more mayhem and death, but it serves as a quiet and perfect ending. Leaving the ship and using his super strength to send the crew on their way before being left alone again is a heartbreaking but tender conclusion to the film. 

It’s a shame that a movie with some of the year’s most beautiful cinematography and such a rich story full of Oscar-worthy performances is spending eternity on a streaming service, but that just seems to be the way the world is going these days.

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