SPOILER ALERT: This article contains spoilers for Guillermo del Toro’s “Frankenstein,” now streaming on Netflix.
Guillermo del Toro has often called Mary Shelley’s 1818 novel “Frankenstein” his Bible. Now, the visionary director has brought his reverent interpretation to life with a Netflix adaptation starring Oscar Isaac as Victor Frankenstein and Jacob Elordi as the Creature—a film that takes significant liberties with the source material while capturing something essential about Shelley’s masterwork.
“The usual discourse of Frankenstein has to do with science gone awry,” del Toro told Variety in their August cover story. “But for me, it’s about the human spirit. It’s not a cautionary tale: It’s about forgiveness, understanding and the importance of listening to each other.”
It’s a bold reframing of one of literature’s most adapted tales, which has spawned everything from James Whale’s iconic 1931 monster movie (featuring the flat-headed, bolt-necked Creature we all recognize) to Kenneth Branagh’s more faithful 1994 attempt “Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein.” Del Toro makes no pretense of strict accuracy—Elizabeth (Mia Goth) is essentially reinvented, Victor receives a new backstory, and characters like Henry Clerval and Justine Moritz are eliminated entirely.
But how well does del Toro’s vision align with Shelley’s original intent? To find out, we turned to Julie Carlson, an English professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara and an expert on the British Romantic period and the Wollstonecraft-Godwin-Shelley family. The following interview, originally conducted by Variety, reveals how del Toro’s “Frankenstein” succeeds—and occasionally struggles—to honor its literary ancestor.
A Serious Artist Taking Serious Work Seriously
What was your initial reaction to the film — did you enjoy it?
I did. I always like when serious artists take serious work seriously. I did feel, certainly in comparison to other renditions, there was real love for the book and for Mary Shelley’s brilliance. It was more faithful to the framed narrative, to the ways that Victor and the Creature get to tell their own story. And also, I thought it did a good job of capturing the language in the book. The Creature, at times, is very lyrical — not as lyrical as in the book, but still it’s clear there’s all kinds of philosophical pronouncements going on.
This assessment gets at something crucial: del Toro’s “Frankenstein” understands that Shelley’s novel isn’t just a gothic horror story, but a multi-layered philosophical text where different narrators offer competing perspectives on truth, responsibility, and what it means to be human. By preserving the framed narrative structure, del Toro respects the novel’s complexity in ways most adaptations don’t bother attempting.
Victor’s Backstory: From Hubris to Shame
Del Toro makes significant changes to Victor’s origins, giving him an abusive physician father who possibly allowed Victor’s mother to die in childbirth so he could experiment on her body. This darker familial history shifts the story’s emphasis.
How does this shift affect the story’s themes?
It’s less about hubris, although of course that’s there, and more about shame. The way the father slaps [Victor] around when he can’t learn his lessons, and then he strikes the Creature when the Creature doesn’t learn as quickly as he wants him to — I think that’s interesting. It seemed to me there was a little less Faustian stuff about knowledge and power, and more about knowledge and shame and not living up to the name Victor or his father’s reputation. And that’s what he says [to his father]: You failed, because the mother dies, and I’m going to beat you [in cheating death].
This reframing transforms Victor from a figure of dangerous ambition into someone driven by paternal inadequacy and the need to prove himself. The cycle of abuse becomes self-perpetuating: Victor’s father strikes him for failing to learn, then Victor strikes the Creature for the same reason. It’s a subtle but significant shift that adds psychological depth while perhaps softening some of Shelley’s critique of unchecked scientific hubris.
Elizabeth Reimagined: From Passive to Independent
One of del Toro’s boldest choices involves Elizabeth, who in Shelley’s novel is Victor’s docile cousin-turned-fiancée. In the film, she’s betrothed to Victor’s grown brother William (a child in the book) and reimagined as an independent scientist specializing in entomology.
What do you make of this change?
The Elizabeth stuff is very different. Of course, in these days, I think it would have to go in that direction. She’s quite passive in the book; she doesn’t have much to do. Here, she’s very independent, she’s a scientist herself, an entomologist. It seemed to me that this was one of those moments where [del Toro] is really in the book, because there is a kind of throwaway line where Victor describes Elizabeth as “playful as an insect.” And so, it was very interesting that that’s her passion in the film.
This detail reveals del Toro’s careful reading of Shelley’s text. Rather than simply modernizing Elizabeth for contemporary audiences, he’s excavating a single line from the novel and building an entire characterization around it. It’s the kind of creative extrapolation that demonstrates genuine engagement with the source material.
Carlson continues: “In general, people whitewash that line and say it means she was flitting around [like an insect]. But that’s another thing about the book that the film touches on, where Shelley gets much more at the ways in which [Victor] is lying to himself as well as to everybody else. And Elizabeth in the film points that out a couple times, especially when he comes to wish her and William well at the marriage and she says basically, ‘No you don’t.’ So she, in the film, articulates Victor’s kind of delusional qualities in the sense of the need to present himself a certain way.”
Elizabeth and the Creature: Connection Without Eroticization
Perhaps del Toro’s most controversial change involves Elizabeth’s relationship with the Creature. In Shelley’s novel, they never meet until he murders her on her wedding night to Victor—an act of revenge against his creator. In the film, they interact several times, she’s the only person to show him empathy, and she ultimately dies protecting him.
Did you find the connection between them to be romantic and do you think that diminishes Shelley’s message at all?
I think she identifies with him. One of the first things she says to him is, “Are you hurt?” Yes, there’s a real connection, but it’s not so eroticized for me. She does say, when she’s dying, “Love is brief; I am glad I found it with you.” So maybe, yeah, it skirts those edges. But I think a couple of times she says, “I’m odd,” because she’s an entomologist and no one understands her. So I think there is a sympathy between the Creature and Elizabeth that is about being a subordinated figure.
Carlson sees their bond as rooted in shared marginalization rather than romance: “For Mary Shelley, it’s such a patriarchal world in the book. All the women — the mother, Elizabeth and Justine — are basically just sacrificed to patriarchy. And I like that del Toro doesn’t try to make it quite so heavy-handed like that. But I think that’s part of what their connection is.”
This interpretation frames Elizabeth’s empathy for the Creature as recognition between two beings who don’t fit society’s expectations—she as a woman with intellectual pursuits, he as a being who shouldn’t exist at all.
Downplaying Social Critique for Structural Analysis
One significant shift in del Toro’s adaptation involves the nature of its critique. Shelley’s novel offers searing commentary on how society treats those who are different, particularly through scenes where the Creature is violently rejected based solely on his appearance.
Did you feel the film still communicated the book’s themes of violence against women and unfair treatment of oppressed people?
I think the film downplays what was so strong in Shelley’s “Frankenstein”: the social critique. [The film] is a structural critique. It’s more about war, militarism, capitalism — which is fine, I mean that is something we need to be worried about. But in the book and in other films, the sympathy for the Creature is about how nobody can stand him because of how he looks. It’s about how people read you.
Carlson notes a crucial difference in how Victor abandons his creation: “And the film doesn’t do that, certainly not at the beginning. In the book, Victor runs away as soon as the Creature opens his eyes because he’s so horrified. [In the movie], he parents for a while and only leaves when he gets frustrated. So in a certain way, that would not be true to the book, but [it is] in the way that Shelley is really thinking about maternity, paternity and what one owes to one’s progeny, whether it’s a book or a baby.”
This shift has profound implications. Shelley’s Victor is horrified by superficial appearance; del Toro’s Victor is frustrated by behavioral challenges. One speaks to prejudice based on physical difference; the other to the difficulties of parenting and responsibility.
A More Human Creature—For Better and Worse
Del Toro’s Creature, portrayed by Jacob Elordi, is one of the most human-looking in cinematic history. We also don’t witness the killing spree that makes Shelley’s creation so terrifying, which naturally generates more sympathy.
What are your thoughts on this difference?
I do really like that he humanizes the Creature and does a lot more with face-to-face communication. It’s almost like [French philosopher Emmanuel] Levinas in that way: when you behold the face of the other, you can’t murder them. But it skirts over some of the questions of responsibility that I think Mary Shelley already, even at 19, is wondering about. People keep trying to shoot him [in the film], but it’s not like we are to fear him. And we are to fear him. It’s not because he’s ugly — but for Shelley, if you turn something loose in the world, that is fearful.
This observation highlights a tension in del Toro’s approach. By making the Creature more sympathetic and less monstrous, the film gains emotional resonance but potentially loses some of Shelley’s harder questions about accountability and the consequences of creation. The novel’s Creature commits genuine atrocities; he’s not simply a misunderstood victim. Del Toro’s version softens those edges.
The De Lacey Family: Friendship as Alternative to Romance
One section of Shelley’s novel that rarely makes it to screen is the Creature’s extended time observing the De Lacey family, particularly his connection with their blind patriarch. Del Toro includes this sequence, emphasizing its themes of friendship and human connection.
What did you think of this inclusion?
I think that’s one of the most faithful to the book. I am very interested in the notion of friendship in my work, and it really played that up. That was very interesting to me — that he emphasized that so much and as a way outside of, say, heterosexual or even homoerotic transfers. The film is not very sexual in any way, so you don’t really feel that’s a big preoccupation, but friendship was a big thing at least in that scene.
This focus on friendship rather than romance or sexuality represents another way del Toro shifts emphasis while remaining true to Shelley’s broader themes about human connection and the fundamental need for companionship that drives the Creature’s actions throughout the novel.
How It Measures Up to Other Adaptations
With countless “Frankenstein” adaptations spanning nearly a century of cinema, how does del Toro’s version rank?
Compared to other film adaptations of “Frankenstein,” how does del Toro’s measure up overall?
It’s closer to the multi-layered nature of Shelley’s text. It really does divide the film like the book and frames it in the same way. And it’s really not a horror film, it’s a gothic film. I think some of the other film versions also are interested in the big questions, but they seem to treat them serially or mainly about one thing or another, whereas this one does try to get at various components of what the book is after — but not always successfully.
Carlson concludes: “I think many of the film versions aren’t trying to be faithful to Mary Shelley. I would certainly say it’s more like the book, and it’s trying to honor not just the book, but Mary Shelley and that whole group [Percy Shelley, Lord Byron, etc.].”
The Verdict: Faithful in Spirit, If Not in Letter
What emerges from Carlson’s analysis is a portrait of an adaptation that takes liberties with plot and character while remaining deeply engaged with Shelley’s thematic concerns. Del Toro changes who Elizabeth is, how Victor’s psychology works, and how sympathetic the Creature appears—but he does so while demonstrating intimate knowledge of the source text.
When del Toro makes Elizabeth an entomologist, he’s building on a single line from Shelley’s novel. When he emphasizes friendship over sexuality, he’s highlighting an underexplored aspect of the original. When he softens the Creature’s monstrousness, he’s making explicit the sympathy that’s always been latent in Shelley’s portrayal.
The film succeeds most when it captures Shelley’s structural complexity—the nested narratives, the philosophical dialogues, the ambiguity about who bears responsibility for the tragedy that unfolds. It struggles when it downplays the novel’s social critique in favor of more abstract concerns about war and capitalism, or when its humanization of the Creature sidesteps harder questions about accountability.
But perhaps most importantly, del Toro’s “Frankenstein” demonstrates what he said from the beginning: this isn’t about science gone wrong, it’s about the human spirit, forgiveness, and the importance of listening to each other. That may not be the only valid reading of Mary Shelley’s novel—but it’s a legitimate one, grounded in careful attention to her text and animated by genuine love for her work.
For a story that’s been adapted countless times, often reduced to its most superficial elements (green skin, flat head, neck bolts), del Toro’s version offers something increasingly rare: a “Frankenstein” that actually grapples with why Shelley’s novel remains essential nearly 207 years after its publication.
It may not be the most faithful adaptation—but it might be the one that most deeply understands what faithfulness actually means.
