Guillermo del Toro has long been fascinated by finding humanity in monsters, who are often deemed evil for things they have no control over. That is also the case with Frankenstein (2025), where the hideousness of the creature does not reduce him to his monstrous capabilities, nor does the intellect of his creator absolve him from any criticism. Del Toro, however, seems so deeply invested in flipping common perceptions about them that they appear simply as representational figures to prove his point about the crisis of humanity, rather than a thorough investigation of their psyche. So, while the film is filled with charming and tender moments, as one would expect from a Del Toro film, and the gorgeous gothic production design, it is a feeble character analysis.
The film is quite sentimental since it relies on our sympathy or apparent disgust for its characters to offer a critique of unchecked power that is too on-the-nose to leave a lasting impact. What we get is a plea for compassion for the downtrodden, but through a script marred by its insistence on literalism, even if the tragedy is sufficient to make us realize the evils of the god complex. We don’t need characters to spell out every single intention, thought, or fear; we should be able to realize and feel it without being told to. Alas, Del Toro’s intentions seem pure and relevant, considering real-life parallels to Victor, who boasts of his genius without a shred of accountability for the impact of his creation/s, while the creature that the world fears or looks away from is far more humane than he can ever be. It leaves the film being one that you understand more than you feel.
Spoilers Ahead
Frankenstein (2025) Plot Summary & Movie Synopsis:
Guillermo del Toro’s ‘Frankenstein’ follows Victor Frankenstein, a talented surgeon who assembles a human-like Creature to defy death as a means to spite his late absent father, only to realize the curse of eternal life.
What happens in Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein?
Guillermo del Toro’s film is less of an adaptation of Mary Shelley’s eponymous novel than a reimagining with her characters. It is firmly set in the good-vs-evil dichotomy, where a kindred spirit is up against an evil entity. He flips their roles in the story, since the Creature isn’t an antagonist but a misjudged, innocent figure, bound to live a life that he didn’t ask for. That can practically be a case for every living being, since none of us ask to be born and are brought into the world by those who benefit from our birth. We live with the knowledge that our lives are limited, and we cannot escape death. Unlike us, the creature is immortal, thus, cannot escape life itself. His life, as a disfigured, visibly threatening creature, feels far from worthwhile.
Del Toro introduces his tragedy after presenting how he came into being. The script analyzes his birth in two chapters, one from the creator, Victor Frankenstein’s perspective, while the next from the Creature’s. It introduces Victor (Christian Convery) as a child who grew up in an aristocratic family with a loving mother, Claire (Mia Goth) and an oppressive father, Leopold (Charles Dance). Unlike Claire, Leopold was mostly absent from Victor’s life, but that didn’t stop him from micro-managing their lives. He married Claire simply to preserve his societal status and for financial gain. So, when it came to childbirth, he treated her merely like a means for procreation. After her death, he treated their younger son, William, with more love and care than he had ever shown Victor.
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That made Victor jealous, who was already resentful of his father for failing to protect his mother despite his tall reputation as a physician. Victor believed Leopold didn’t make a genuine effort to save her. Leopold, however, felt no pain or remorse while saying death is inescapable. So, after Leopold’s death, Victor made it his life’s mission to prove him wrong.
How is Frankenstein’s Creature conceived?
After Leopold’s death, Victor moved to London, while William moved to Vienna. Victor (Oscar Isaac) grew up to be a renowned surgeon, hoping to expand the academic research on life and birth. While in Edinburgh, he found a way to breathe life into inanimate parts of corpses, placed together to form a unit. It provoked the scholars so much that he was forced to leave his job and to continue his research elsewhere. Still, his presentation intrigued Henrich Harlander (Christoph Waltz), a wealthy man, who decided to fund Victor’s research, but didn’t specify why. Victor used his money to assemble parts of corpses to give birth without procreation or divine intervention. Only when he reached the final stage did he realize Henrich’s true intentions.
Henrich wanted Victor to build this life form so that he could escape death from a terminal disease. He forced Victor to rush this process once he realized that time was running out for him. Victor, however, refused that request, owing to Henrich’s diseased body parts potentially ruining his experiment. While fighting for himself, Henrich lost his life. Victor resumed his work, worried that he had failed in his life’s mission, only to find his creature (Jacob Elordi) waking him up from sleep. Still, despite his motor functions, the creature could speak just a single word, the name of his creator. Victor believed the creature couldn’t think or speak, and yet, posed a threat, owing to his gigantic size and superhuman abilities. In short, while trying to create a human, he thought he created a monster.
Frankenstein (2025) Movie Ending Explained:
How did the Creature become human?
The creature became human after someone showed compassion to him. Victor chained him in the basement to keep him out of everyone’s eyes, but Lady Elizabeth Harlander (Mia Goth) made him feel seen and heard. She showed what humanity is capable of at its best, lending a helping hand to the needy and treating them with kindness. Victor showed humanity’s worst impulses through his egotism and arrogance. He noticed her getting close to the Creature, and couldn’t bear the thought of someone else having her. That’s why he pushed her away from the tower and burned it to kill the creature. While walking away, he heard the creature call out his name. It evoked something in him that made him want to save the creature.
It might be his parental instinct kicking in, pushing him to save his child, or it might be him saving himself, seeing his inner child in the creature. No matter the intention, he couldn’t save the creature. Instead, the creature rescued himself and arrived in a forest. There, he got shot by the locals, who made him run for his life. So, he sought shelter in a nearby farm. He stayed hidden in a shelter while helping out the locals as a ‘spirit of the forest.’ While the world reviled him, an old, blind man showed him compassion, taught him to read and understand the world. The creature learnt the ‘eat or get eaten’ philosophy of the world, but couldn’t make peace with its rigidness and brutality. Others conformed to what the world expected of them; he questioned why one must conform.
Through these lessons, the old man helped the creature understand humanity and become human. That’s the crux of Del Toro’s film. It’s not who we are born as that defines who we can be. Our choices define us (or they should at least.) It brings us to his moralistic analysis of Victor, whose bitterness had consumed him so much that he forgot how to be human.
Who is the monster in Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein?
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Solipsistic Victor is the monster in Del Toro’s film, but it takes a long time for William (Felix Kammerer) to confront him about it. It happens during his wedding to Elizabeth, when the creature breaks into Victor’s room. He asks Victor to offer him a companion like him so that he can endure the pain of his existence. Victor, however, feels no remorse even after leaving the creature behind, thus following in the footsteps of his narcissistic father. Instead, he decides to shoot the creature to get done with feeling like a failure. Elizabeth steps in to save the creature and dies in his arms. Even after all of it, Victor blames the creature for everything, and that sheer lack of accountability makes him the monster in William’s eyes.
It doesn’t end there. Victor goes on the run to protect himself from the creature. They meet again when the creature tries to kill himself, but to no avail. It becomes increasingly clear that the creature cannot die. So, the film ends on a poetic note of reconciliation between the two when they are at a crossroads of life and death. After running away from death for so long, Victor succumbs to it, but his creation continues living even if he doesn’t want to. Finally, while on his deathbed, Victor mourns his life’s choices and treats his child with the love he once sought. That’s why, after living his life as a monster, Victor dies a human, being next to his creation, who makes him open himself up to his humanity.
The creature walks away alone after helping a ship full of army men return to the water. Their stories make their captain return home instead of pursuing their goals through war.
Frankenstein (2025) Movie Themes Analyzed:
Fatherhood and Immortality
The most obvious theme of Del Toro’s film is its critique of our perception and judgment based on one’s non-avoidable features or circumstances. An aristocrat isn’t noble simply for being born into a life of wealth and privilege, nor is the creature evil for being born as a lanky, hideous figure. Victor’s tale also brings fatherhood to the fray, where he reflects the ‘hurt people hurt people’ trope. His entire life is an attempt to one-up his father in academia, yet it leaves him as bitter and narcissistic as the old man. The film also presents an interconnected web of characters worried about life or death. Victor’s whole arc is defined by his father not saving his mother and calling death inevitable.
Del Toro also shows it through motifs like memento mori, the concept of immortality that Henrich sees in a pear in his painting. Henrich is also an arms manufacturer, leading to violence and death. Yet, his death was predetermined by syphilis. Only the creature escapes death, but is condemned to live an eternal life. For him, immortality becomes a curse. Del Toro seemingly asks if immortality is even worthwhile if it is achieved at such a high cost and lack of humanity.
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