(no subject)

[skygiants]

The other movie I saw recently -- not on a plane! but in a real theater! -- was Guillermo del Toro's Frankenstein, which. Hmm. Well, it's a two and a half hour movie, and I wasn't bored at all, which is a pretty significant feat. I had a good time! I don't know that everyone else in the theater with me had as good a time as I did because I am, unfortunately, a Theater Giggler; I often commit the crime of laughing out loud at things that are not supposed to be funny and I did that SEVERAL times in this beautifully shot, passionately acted, heartfelt, profoundly unsubtle movie. An incomplete list of inappropriate times when I had to cover my mouth with my hands, on account of the giggling:

- when we get to Frankenstein's workshop (a former munitions purchased for Frankenstein, by Frankenstein's fiscal sponsor) and the camera pans up and up and up to reveal that what in fact Frankenstein's fiscal sponsor has purchased for him is essentially Saruman's tower

- when Syphilitic Christoph Waltz is like 'Frankenstein, you shall put my brain inside your creature that you're making' and Frankenstein makes exactly the face that anyone would make if they were going to have a baby and Christoph Waltz was like 'and I think your baby should be possessed by me, Syphilitic Christoph Waltz'

- when the Creature staggers out of the castle and immediately has a Disney prince moment with a majestic stag

- when WOLVES

- when WOLVES AGAIN

- when Frankenstein's brother looks directly at the camera and declares, "YOU are the monster, Victor!"

- when Elizabeth raptly reached out a hand to touch the Creature's chest like Peggy in the Captain America movie, but this one wasn't my fault because at this point my friend leaned over and whispered to me "WHY DOES HE HAVE ONE PERFECT PECTORAL"

There were also a couple of appropriate times when I laughed out loud! The movie has some good jokes! I liked it when Frankenstein kept drinking all that milk in inappropriate situations! It's a good visual joke that IS thematic (Frankenstein with his mommy issues and postpartum depression) and also never has to be verbally explained; Guillermo del Toro, let no one say you are not capable of subtlety in important matters.

Okay, okay, but enough about jokes. The Themes. I don't think we needed all the time we spent on Frankenstein's Parental Issues but I don't hate the emphasis on a cycle of abuse situation, nor tbh am I upset that the Creature spends the majority of this movie as, again, a Disney prince, instinctively trusted by all animals, an innocent untainted by the Crimes of Man. Honestly that's fine with me. There have been so many Brutish and Monstrous Creatures over the book's adaptation history, if Guillermo del Toro wants to lean into 'cinnamon roll with a little mouse buddy' it only seems fair. My complaints are these:

a.) Elizabeth. This movie is two and a half hours long; why is there Only One Woman and why does she have to be all things to all people? I understand that Guillermo del Toro is constitutionally incapable of making a monster movie without somebody wanting to fuck that monster, but why is Elizabeth romantically involved with Frankenstein AND his brother AND the creature? Why is she a monsterfucker AND a convent-raised innocent with ardent anti-war opinions AND an intellectual with an interest in natural science who is Not Like Other Girls AND the only ethical actor in the film? Why is Elizabeth's actress also playing Frankenstein's fridged mother? Why is the only other woman who ever appears in Victor's life a prostitute who's on screen for thirty seconds with the sole purpose of Foreshadowing Syphilis? Why do adaptations consistently fail to give us JUSTINE MORITZ?

b.) the ending. Forgiveness!! unbelievably unearned. And the thing that's frustrating is I do think this would have been pretty easy to fix -- the movie's given itself a setup where both Frankenstein and the Creature have the chance to hear each other's stories, it could show them reacting to them! and having different interpretations of events! and approaching some kind of better understanding as a result! and if you're not going to do that then what is even the POINT of having a frame story -- I mean I understand that the point of the frame story is that it exists in the book and also that it's fun for Guillermo del Toro to do a little The Terror, as a treat. But nonetheless. Ah, well. My days of having a complex relationship to both the book Frankenstein and all adaptations thereof are certainly coming to a middle!

Comments

[troisoiseaux]

I often commit the crime of laughing out loud at things that are not supposed to be funny and I did that SEVERAL times in this beautifully shot, passionately acted, heartfelt, profoundly unsubtle movie

If it makes you feel better, I saw this movie with six people and fully half of us spent the movie trying not to laugh out loud at contextually inappropriate moments. (It was me. I'm also a Theater Giggler.)

I liked it when Frankenstein kept drinking all that milk in inappropriate situations!

THE MIIIIIIIILK. This is honestly going to be the one thing from this movie I remember.

[snickfic]

The ending bugged the hell out of me for the reasons you give. And you're right, it would've been great if the stories actually conflicted in any way, or even just seemed to represent two different perspectives. Alas.

[sushiflop]

Oh so much of this sounds delightful and fun but the One Load-Bearing Female Character thing would drive me up the wall too!! Come on del Toro!!

"- when we get to Frankenstein's workshop (a former munitions purchased for Frankenstein, by Frankenstein's fiscal sponsor) and the camera pans up and up and up to reveal that what in fact Frankenstein's fiscal sponsor has purchased for him is essentially Saruman's tower"

This description made me laugh, so I look forward to thinking of it when I inevitably eventually watch this movie

[chestnut_pod]

They eliminated Justine? Unforgivable. No one can understand Frankenstein without Justine!

[labingi]

My days of having a complex relationship to both the book Frankenstein and all adaptations thereof are certainly coming to a middle!

Love this! It may be the same for me.

My first impression of the movie was also it's enjoyable and very well paced. (This is going in knowing it was very different from the book.) My impression a few weeks later is forgettable. It didn't stick with me. Don't hate it, don't love it, don't feel it left much of a ripple on my personal relationship with the Frankenstein mythos. Glad you got a lot of giggles though!

[starlady]

I really liked it, but honestly I was probably sold by the inclusion of the Arctic frame tale, which is Thematically Loadbearing. I also appreciated the inclusion of actual texts that are important in the book.

My one criticism was actually that Wolves Don't Behave Like That, This Is Wolf Slander. But I can't disagree with yours? Still I really enjoyed it and it was visually gorgeous, thank you GdT for sharing your vision with us once again.

[kore]

"but why is Elizabeth romantically involved with Frankenstein AND his brother AND the creature? Why is she a monsterfucker AND a convent-raised innocent with ardent anti-war opinions AND an intellectual with an interest in natural science who is Not Like Other Girls AND the only ethical actor in the film? Why is Elizabeth's actress also playing Frankenstein's fridged mother?"

That is A LOT

[osprey_archer]

Unrelated but I LOVE your cat icon.

[osprey_archer]

I want to see this one! Pan's Labyrinth is one of my favorite movies ever so I'm always hoping that the next Del Toro will hit the same way... however Pan's Labyrinth is perhaps the ONLY Del Toro where no one wants to fuck the monster, so perhaps I should just accept that none of his other movies will ever quite hit the same sweet spot for me.

[antisoppist]

I went to the cinema and watched three-quarters of it while waiting to pick my daughter up from a theatre thing and I enjoyed it a lot because it was very nice to look at and I don't do horror at all but perhaps it is a good thing that I had to leave to pick her up with 15 minutes to go. I was intrigued as to how they were going to fit all the rest of the book into 15 minutes but it sounds like they didn't bother.

[luzula]

"WHY DOES HE HAVE ONE PERFECT PECTORAL"
Is his other pectoral imperfect?

[sushiflop]

Thank you, kitty has always given me the vibe of a particularly exasperated judge in that one!

[ranalore]

I saw this in my living room by myself, and it's a good thing too, because I am a Theater Cackler. I actually had to pause the movie for several minutes when I burst out laughing at the terrible CGI when the tower exploded and Victor was thrown up into the air, then against one of the gate posts, and his leg just sort of popped off and burst open like a bubble in a mobile game, and I just could not stop laughing, which I'm almost certain wasn't the reaction they were aiming for with that scene. Later, after the movie was over, I couldn't help but think of how different my reaction would have been if that had been a practical effect. I still wouldn't have felt much sympathy (or patience) for Victor, but I would have felt more connected to the storytelling. At least enough to feel like really arguing with it, instead of just patting it on the head while I continue to chortle behind my hand and then go back to what I was doing.

[skygiants]

when he loaded up on powdered milk for his arctic adventure ... shot and chaser. absolute chef's kiss

[skygiants]

It's one of those situations where the change of medium (book to TV) seems really set up to lean into and give extra dimensions to the frame narrative conceit, and then when that didn't happen it felt like a wasted opportunity ... ah well!

[skygiants]

Frankenstein the book has several women in it! We, too, could be woman-rich if anyone ever remembered Justine!!
but it really was fun to watch, so I hope you do enjoy it too whenever you get around to it

[skygiants]

He's not the first to do it nor will he be the last -- I think Justine has made it into one film adaptation tops -- but he's probably the one who most disappointed me by doing so!

[skygiants]

I think the main impression it left on me is that it really solidified my sense of Victor Frankenstein's Postpartum Depression. All my other complaints aside, Oscar Isaac sold that emotion perfectly.

[skygiants]

Yeah, I also appreciated the Arctic element and the Paradise Lost shout-out! (I do think it's funny that they aged up the sea captain to match Oscar Isaac; this Victor is NOT a youth! he is an ADULT who made his bad decisions as a FULL GROWN MAN and enthralled another FULL GROWN MAN likewise)

it's such funny wolf slander, too. true monster movie nonsense. like the old blind man doesn't know how to close a door??

[skygiants]

There are other actresses in the movie! two of them are intermittently onscreen for ten whole minutes while the creature peers longingly at their affectionate family bond, and the third is onscreen for thirty seconds to make one (one) joke and Foreshadow Syphilis.

[skygiants]

I really enjoy Crimson Peak in much the same way that I really enjoy this one: visually DRAMATIC and INTERESTING! and full of Symbolism! and moments where perhaps I was not supposed to laugh out loud in the theater!

[skygiants]

the Wedding Night situation is a REAL speed-run

[skygiants]

he is stitched together out of various bits all over! except for his one single perfect pectoral on which both the camera and Elizabeth's hands linger lovingly

[skygiants]

ajsdkl;fdj yeah I also had a hard time taking that scene seriously .... every time they were in Victor's Tower I just kept thinking 'who BUILT this munitions factory? and WHY??'

(when they first showed us the Pit in the Floor my other friend leaned over and whispered in my other ear chekhov's OSHA violation!)

[kore]

THERE CAN BE MORE THAN ONE DAME IN A PICTURE, GUYS

Come on male directors! You can do it!

[kore]

Justine is actually SO important

[ranalore]

Oh MAN, the Pit. My dad was an Industrial Hygienist in the Navy, and while I'm well aware workplace safety was not remotely a thing in the nineteenth century—quite the opposite, in fact—I still could not help but look at the Pit, and the unnecessarily decorative, unnecessarily phallic unsecured heavy machinery without purpose just...hanging around everywhere, and imagine what my father would have to say about it.

[labingi]

I also thought the movie captured struggling with parenthood really well. For me as an initially single, international adoptive parent of older kids (4 and 7 when they came to the US), I immediately--and uncomfortably--recognized the state of mind Victor was in trying to take care of the monster while being completely fried and at the end of his tether with no help. It's very, very hard not to lash out inappropriately with some degree of anger at your child when you're under the strain of caring for a helpless stranger who you can't talk to/reason with, day after day with no let-up. I never harmed my kids physically, but I certainly fell into sarcastic language I knew they didn't understand and angry scolding they didn't deserve. The movie got that very realistically, IMO.

(Given that background, it was weird watching the movie with my now 18-year-old son, who kept saying things like, "Man, he's a really messed-up father," which filled me with a tremendous sense of relief that we managed to raise him to see that kind of behavior as aberrant and basically reach young adulthood okay.)