“Frankenstein,” Guillermo del Toro’s cinematic colossus

“Guillermo del Toro’s colossal ‘Frankenstein’ overflows at the Venice Film Festival,” headlines El País after the screening of “perhaps the most anticipated” film at the Mostra on August 30. A film whose director himself, the Mexican Guillermo del Toro, has long nurtured the project after being fascinated as a child by James Whale’s 1931 adaptation, then by Mary Shelley’s novel.

“This powerful desire has materialized […] through a film that is itself very great,” writes the Spanish newspaper, which notes its “excesses: length, spectacle and explanations. In short, a huge cinematic experience, one that theaters need,” adds El País, which nevertheless specifies: “we will see it mainly on Netflix in November.”

Undoubtedly, the film has many of the director's strengths: "a splendid use of colors, makeup, costumes and visual effects," "a captivating atmosphere," "a tender and empathetic gaze." However, "perhaps carried away by enthusiasm, the Mexican put too much into his film," particularly by explaining through the narration what the images show or suggest.

“Let's be clear: the film is visually and technically splendid,” acknowledges La Repubblica , at the end of a review that emphasizes above all that this adaptation “disappoints” and “does not achieve its goals.” Too faithful to the 1816 novel, Guillermo del Toro seems to “take it as gospel,” as if two centuries had not passed in the meantime, judges the transalpine title.

The Guardian strikes a similar note : the beauty of the images "conveys the film's reverence for its original source [...] but, for me, blocks the energy of horror," writes the British newspaper's critic.

“No director knows how to look at monsters with as much affection and empathy as Guillermo del Toro,” La Stampa nevertheless praises . “It happened with the Oscar-winning film 'The Shape of Water,' which won the Golden Lion at the Mostra in 2017, and again today,” writes the Italian newspaper. In fact, for the film's director, interested in “our right to imperfection,” the real monster is not Frankenstein: the real ones, he told the press, “are those in jackets and ties, ready to dehumanize us in the name of goals without any value.”