“Frankenstein”: Guillermo del Toro fulfills childhood dream with new film

“Some books and stories become part of our DNA.” To throw “Frankenstein” does the Mexican filmmaker Guillermo del Toro61, widely known for “Pan’s Labyrinth” (2006) and “The Shape of Water” (2017)make a childhood dream come true. In an interview given exclusively to CNNthe director of the new adaptation of the classic story highlights how he brought a great passion to the screen. The film, rated at Oscar 2026, arrives on the Netflix streaming platform this Friday (7).

For del Toro, the film is the realization of an old dream: his first contact with the story was as a child, in Mexico. According to him, the Frankenstein’s monster is his saint patron. “Mary Shelley’s creation accompanies me throughout my life. Even though it’s my Bible, I wanted to appropriate the story, tell it in another tone, with another emotion”, says del Toro.

“I wanted to make this film before I even had a camera or knew how to direct. As a child, when I saw Boris Karloff cross the threshold in the hero’s journey (in the 1931 Universal adaptation of Frankenstein), I felt like I was in a religious moment, because everything I thought about the Catholic universe made sense. I thought, ‘This thing is out of this world, and this is me. That’s who I am. That’s why I don’t fit in.’

The story gained an even more dramatic charge when the professional went through a dramatic moment in his life. “”‘Pinocchio’ and ‘Frankenstein’ are my two most beloved stories. I ended up doing one film after another after I lost my father and mother. I had to question myself about my identity, as I was an orphan. These losses left both films deeper,” said the filmmaker, who faced the death of his mother in 2022the same year as the production of his reinterpretation of “Pinocchio”.

The film is a adaptation of the classic work “Frankenstein” (1818). According to del Toro, he revisits the plot to explore what it means to be human and what it means to be
deeply misunderstood as creator and creature.

“The book has a strong aura of anxiety, that anxiety when you’re a teenager and don’t understand why everyone lies about the world. The book has that kind of
of unsettling energy. There is a desire in him to question capitalism. The idea of ​​the book is to question: ‘Who am I? Why am I here? What did God have in store for me? What is my purpose? What is the world?’ I wanted to capture that anxiety. I tried to absorb the style and themes of the dialogues. Many of the dialogues (from the film) are entirely original, but carry Mary Shelley’s language and rhythm. Those who have English as a second language develop skills for the melody and rhythm of a language. The book’s dialogues have a particular rhythm. I tried to leave them like that, but without sounding archaic”, he commented.

Regarding setting his own tone for the work, del Toro explained how he saw the adaptation.

“Frankenstein wasn’t written by Mary Shelley as a period piece. At that time, it was a modern book. I wanted Victor to dress like Mick Jagger in Soho in 1970. I wanted the costumes to be opulent and colorful, for the sets to be a little exaggerated in color, and for everything to be color-coded very carefully. I say that making an adaptation is like marrying a widow: you have to respect the memory of the deceased, but Saturdays still need to be vivid. So, it’s important to take ownership of the book. If that’s not the case, what would be the point in adapting it?”

Ultimately, he defined his “Frankenstein” as a “melodrama.”

The film takes up Mary Shelley’s classic story about Victor Frankenstein, a brilliant and self-centered scientist who brings a being to life in a monstrous experiment, which ends up leading to the disgrace of the creator and the creature.

Oscar Isaac (“Dune”) plays Victor Frankenstein, a brilliant and disturbed scientist who takes on the egocentric mission of generating a new form of life. This experiment gives rise to the Creature, experienced by Jacob Elordi (“Euphoria”).

In the film, the audience goes from the confines of the Arctic to the bloody battlefields of 19th century Europe, as Frankenstein and his Creature set out in search of meaning in a world that seems gone mad. Also in the cast are Mia Goth (“MaXXXine”), in the role of the candid Elizabeth, and Christoph Waltz (“Inglourious Basterds”).

Watch the trailer for “Frankenstein”