r/FRANKENSTEIN

Honestly, I'd take this adventuresome Frankenstein story over Del Toro's Frankenstein all day long.

Bale and Buckley gave great performances in somewhat difficult roles (easy to hit the wrong notes on), I think one of Bale's most enjoyable performances in a while and I'm a fan. The performances alone give this film a recommendation The cinematography was absolutely beautiful, the color palettes of scenes and lighting were so on point, rich and expressive. It had interesting, subtle things to say about the role of film and icons in film, how we project ourselves onto screens, and screens project themselves into us and our identities, and perhaps even more interesting things about being possessed by authors of literature, and intensive authors of the past, Mary Shelley able to reach from the grave into all of us. Some really memorably scenes (the big dance scene I loved), and presences like Jake Gyllenhaal. It was uneven some in tone, the shifting into new set ups that felt a bit like new movies (surprise, its a movie celebrating "movies"!), but really not all that jarring once you caught on. The whole Penelope Cruz and Sarsgaard thing, I haven't a clue what was happening there and why it got so much screen time. I mean, I "get" the messages but it ultimately really felt like a distraction. I would have much preferred more of Mary Shelly penetrating The Bride! reality and wrestling for control throughout instead of mostly disappearing, except for wordplay (I think the script missed a turn there). But honestly, given all the negative hullabaloo I was pretty surprised how structurally mild the film was, I expected some sort of cacophony of filmmaking.

The only thing is, and it was a big one, as much as I had read that this was some sort of feminist anthem (and yes, full of feminist ideas and tropes of resistance - did love the ink-stained mouth - Romantic tuberculosis cough up - and fingers, ink as blood for Mary) the main character really wasn't "free" or even breaking away with disordered "geometry" much at all. In fact she kind of was that sort before her first death. She mostly was the "sidekick" of Frankenstein, the bad girl with the bad boy boyfriend, Nancy with her "Sid", and even in her chosen name she is positioned towards an implied, if virtual "Groom", and matrimony itself (even if she prefers not to marry anyone). It felt somewhat "light" in the radicalness of her presented breakaway, caught in film cliches of bad girl cinema and being defined opposite the more bankable powerful male "(co)lead". There was much, much more of Bale in this than I imagined would be, not just in terms of screen time, but also how much he was the the gravity which swung a lot of plot development.

On the other hand, letting the question of feminism go, it did feel like a beautiful film about trauma, with death and revitalization about strategies for living post-trauma, with all of the in-habitation of film and literature that can help after trauma, and a sort of vitalistic co-dependency wherein both can give each other reasons for living. The answer to trauma found in Bale's line "It's fucking terrible I know. There is nothing left to do now but live."

Tons of cinema references and quotebacks, literature as well, some obvious (can't breathe in the Bell Jar), some subtle (drive-in movie scene, maybe suggesting White Heat?). Visually so beautiful. Banging acting filling the screen, inventive stylizations. What's not to love?

I have seen Guillermo Del Toro's Frankenstein on Netflix and though it was a solid movie. However while I was looking for some books to add to my To-Read list, I came across the original Frankenstein by Mary Shelley. I've already seen the 2025 Netflix original, should I still read the novel?

THIS IS THE 2025 VERSION.

entire metaphor for Frankenstein being an absence of life is so crazy to me. This has always been one of my favorite novels. I am currently sixteen and my first ever introduction to Frankenstein my goat was Frankenstein's bride. Being like 9 years old I obviously wasn't able to fuckin fully understand what it meant. All I saw was a misunderstood monster who had stiches in his forehead. I never really took my time to truly listen and watch and understand the entire point of Frankenstein. I had just watched Frankenstein 2025. holy fuck did it change my life.

Lately i've been a fat chud and I don't read or write and I find myself getting stuck in my own head. But it brought me to such a moment in life of realizing how supreme my mother is. How different my own life could have been. I lost my dad when I was around 3. Now growing up when I started to become sentient, I always wondered how different things could've been for me if things were the other way around. Would I be completely different if my dad had raised me instead? So watching Frankenstein and understanding the metaphors completely had me so like well understood? I mean my dad was great trust but the entire metaphor of Victor failing to create life because he didn't care about what came after creation.

The thing is like 6ft and embodies a grown man with the brain of a 1 year old basically. So Victor just thinking he failed because his creation isn't "intelligent" is so intense. Like I never thought Frankenstein was a metaphor for life. Even his laboratory in the movie mimicking a womb with the fluids and the cords and the giant hole on the top floor being a way of life and death as we saw Harlander die falling down it and the thing be "born" through it. LMAO "Men wanna give birth sooo bad". The entire ABSENCE OF LIFE JUST IS SO CRAZY TO ME. Also movies like that are always like given bad ratings cuz some bitches jUST DONT GET IT, SOME PPL JUST DONT GET IT. Anyways, my favortie part was when the thing was feeding the deer and getting shot at like what a way start freedom by learning about the circle of life. What was ur fav part??

My Reading of Frankenstein

I finished Frankenstein tonight.

What a sorrowful ending, yet such a beautiful conclusion.

At first, I believed the creature to be the monster. Yet by the end, I realised Victor Frankenstein himself is the true horror of the story. Not because he created life, but because he abandoned it the moment it opened its eyes.

Victor wished to conquer death. He feared mortality so greatly that he sought to create life itself, believing that through science he could transcend the natural order and become something greater than man. Yet in doing so, he created suffering everywhere around him.

The creature was not born evil.

It was born alone.

That is the tragedy.

The creature longed for love, companionship, understanding, and connection. It watched humanity from afar with admiration. It wished not for violence at first, but for acceptance. Yet the very man who gave it life looked upon it with disgust and horror.

Victor gave life to a being, yet refused to give it humanity.

He wanted the glory of creation without the responsibility that comes with it.

And that is where his downfall begins.

The creature begged for compassion. Begged for another like itself so it would not wander the earth in isolation. Yet Victor, so consumed by fear and self-absorption, tore even that hope away.

In doing so, he created the very monster he feared.

There is only so much weight a bridge can bear before it collapses.

The creature’s bridge collapsed beneath abandonment, rejection, hatred, and loneliness. The murders it committed were horrific, yes, but they were born from suffering. It became the reflection of the cruelty shown to it.

Victor spends the entire novel believing himself the victim, yet he rarely acknowledges that he authored the suffering in the first place.

He feared death so deeply that he destroyed life itself.

That is the irony of Frankenstein.

Victor wished to escape mortality, yet his obsession with immortality killed everyone he loved. William. Justine. Clerval. Elizabeth. Even his own father. One by one, death followed the very man who tried to defeat it.

And by the end, both creator and creation realise the truth too late.

Victor realises he failed his own creation.

And the creature realises revenge did not heal its loneliness.

It only made the emptiness greater.

That is why Frankenstein is not simply a horror story.

It is a tragedy about responsibility, isolation, love, rejection, and the consequences of creating life without compassion.

A creature can only be shown hell for so long before it begins to believe it belongs there.

I'll soon have my final B.A. oral exam in English Studies, and one of my two topics is something along the lines of "The Legacy of Frankenstein." I thought of the following thesis statement (using Mary Shelley's novel, the GdT adaptation, and Alasdair Gray's novel Poor Things (as well as its adaptation; not sure about it yet, tho); maybe someone has any insightful thoughts on it:

Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein highlights the issue of interpretive authority present in the (re)telling of a story by allowing the Creature to narrate its own story to both Victor and Captain Anderson, the film’s equivalent of Walton, as well as to the audience. This change alters the story’s outcome towards a more reconciliatory ending in which Victor seeks and receives the Creature’s forgiveness. Similarly, Alasdair Gray’s novel Poor Things adapts and alters the narrative structure of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and gives its ‘Creature’, Bella Baxter, narrative authority both within the central frame narrative, the fictitious novel within the novel, and beyond, casting doubt in the entire story.