It is common knowledge that producing an adaptation from novel to screen perfectly is nearly impossible. This is no exception with Guillermo del Toro’s “Frankenstein,” (2025) starring Jacob Elordi, Mia Goth and Oscar Isaac. While each actor put on an amazing performance and encompassed the souls of each of their characters successfully, there was so much lost when del Toro adapted Mary Shelley’s novel of the same name into a movie. First published in 1818, Shelley’s novel is an enduring classic which has fascinated us for centuries. Shelley’s writing, while it may seem confusing at first, is a beautiful representation of what it is to grapple with narcissism and man’s constant reach for greatness. She created a character, Victor Frankenstein, that houses so much nuance within him and leaves us — the readers — grasping for more. We are urged on with every page and wonder who is the true villain of this story, all the while unknowingly falling in love with the creature Frankenstein creates. This is where my greatest critique of this new movie lies — there is no room for us to consider how much or how little we want to believe in these characters. The movie hits the nail on the head, too obviously showing us that we need to believe Frankenstein is the real monster. While the choice to make every death directly at the hands of Frankenstein instead of at the hands of the creature is gripping at first glance, it takes away the joy of realizing that the Creature isn’t really at fault for these murders. The real culprit is Frankenstein, whose desire for power fuels the creation of the creature, but Frankenstein’s choice to push his creation away forces the creature to choose a life of violence. What I am trying to get at is the obvious lack of nuance within these characters and the lack of subtlety with their actions. The nuance and creativity is one of the most  important parts of Shelley’s novel, and without, it the movie feels lackluster. 

Despite this critique, one element of the movie that is formidable is Jacob Elordi’s portrayal of the Creature. From the moment we see his brown doe eyes encompass the screen it is impossible to deny the desire we feel to love his character. There are many scenes, characters and background information that are lost when the novel is adapted to  film. What is lost, majorly, is the creature’s growth as a living being and his exposure to the world. The novel depicts an individual that is pure to the world, living as a blank slate. As he encounters the world he comes to realize how heinous and dirty it really is. The novel shows the creature constantly being let down by those surrounding him-not only his creator, but by any and every person he encounters. It is because of those interactions that he is driven to madness and to hate the world. 

However, Elordi is able to portray the purity of the creature’s essence, which leaves us readers-turned-movie-goers satisfied. From moving his body perfectly to imitate a newborn to watching the rage against his creator and master manifest, the dedication Elordi has put into this role shines through. The set design, costumes, visual effects, score and cinematography truly are beautiful — all of these parts working together in order to highlight the skills Elordi, along with Isaac and Goth, possesses. Their brilliant work, though, can not overshadow some of the very obvious pitfalls within this movie — the most major one being the abrupt shift from confusion and curiosity within the Creature to pure unadulterated hatred towards Frankenstein. Yes, it is true that we see the creature’s confusion and anger toward Frankenstein portrayed within the scenes of him being chained up and left to die in the fire. However, it also feels like one moment the Creature is going to find out who he is and what happened to him and the next minute he is swearing that he will be the downfall of Frankenstein. This incomplete character arc drives home the point I made previously about the loss of Shelley’s writing in this adaptation — we lose watching the Creature come to terms with who Frankenstein is over a long stretch of time, after being let down by Frankenstein time and time again. 

Frankenstein as portrayed by Shelley is a weirdo, a loner and overall an egotistical 20-year-old child. These traits bring together an individual who wants to accomplish greatness because of an inferiority complex that grips at his soul. However, in the film this characterization is lost in a major way as Frankenstein is reduced to a man with a Freudian obsession with his mother and a lifelong inability to impress his father. Not only do they change the story of Frankenstein’s mother in order to accentuate his lack of maternal love, his internal complexes then become directly due to his orphanage, resulting in the overly accentuated relationships with his parents. This choice again comes back to the lack of subtext in this movie, the nuance that was lost. The complicated and strained relationships with his parents become basically the forefront of this movie and we lose the idea that Frankenstein has been gripped by this question his whole life and feels he has no other option than to destroy everything to create man. We see Frankenstein’s relationship with his mother explicitly portrayed through Frankenstein’s obsession with his brother’s fiancée Elizabeth and his pursuit of something just out of his reach. He must have her and is willing to hurt his brother William in order to get it. Frankenstein’s obsession is driven home by having Mia Goth play both the mother and Elizabeth, giving the only pivotal female figures in his life the same face. 

Despite all of this though, I do think it is important to give credit where credit is due and highlight the ways in which del Toro accomplished greatness and captured the essence of Shelley’s  novel — a feat which is hard to accomplish. Written by a 19-year-old girl, there is a purity and hatred towards the world that is captured within this novel, something that gets hardened and tamped down as we grow older. This feeling that Shelley is trying to get across, that men in that time are constantly striving for greatness and will stop at nothing, is poured into the movie del Toro produced. His script directs each actor to portray the essence of each character, producing a movie that overall is heavily reminiscent of the novel. While there are scenes lost, the acting and production make up for this — and overall the film is a beautiful adaptation.