Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein: Faithful to Mary Shelley or a Bold Rethink?

Guillermo del Toro finally dropped his Frankenstein on Netflix, and the internet is already debating the only question that matters: is this a faithful adaptation of Mary Shelley's 1818 novel, or did he just riff on a classic? Short answer: he absolutely riffed. Longer answer: he aimed for the book's heart, not its blueprint.

Del Toro's approach: same soul, different body

Del Toro has treated Frankenstein as his personal bible for years, but he had zero interest in doing a strict page-to-screen copy. Instead, he leans into the big feelings Shelley's story stirred up: loneliness, obsession, and the messy question of what makes us human. To get there, he rewires family dynamics, rewrites Elizabeth, gives Victor a new childhood, and relocates the whole thing in time. It's not the text, but it wants to be the spirit.

The big swings (and why they matter)

• Time shift: Shelley's novel plays out in the late 1700s; del Toro moves the action to the Crimean War (1853–1856). Practically speaking, that makes Victor's experiments easier: in the book he resorts to grave robbers, while the film's wartime setting gives him access to bodies straight from the battlefield.
• The Frankenstein family, remixed: In the novel, Victor grows up with parents Alphonse and Caroline and siblings Ernest and William. The movie erases Ernest entirely and ages up William so he's closer to Victor, turning them into near-peers with a competitive edge instead of a simple big-brother/little-brother dynamic.
• Elizabeth, re-authored: Book Elizabeth is Victor's adopted cousin and a symbol of kindness and innocence. Caroline dies of scarlet fever after nursing her in Shelley's text. In the film, Victor's mother (named Claire, played by Mia Goth) dies in childbirth instead. Elizabeth herself is no longer a passive ideal; she's sharp, confident, and pushes back on Victor's thinking. She's also engaged to William, forms a dangerously charged bond with Victor, and ultimately falls for the Creature. Big swing, very del Toro.
• The Creature, reframed: On the page, the Creature learns language, reads, and turns vengeful after Victor abandons him, killing people close to Victor. Here, Jacob Elordi's Creature is far more sympathetic. He doesn't hunt out revenge; he fights only when cornered. The movie refuses to present him as a capital-M Monster.
• Victor's past, made explicit: The film gives Victor an abusive father, Leopold (Charles Dance), who teaches him medicine but metes out punishment. His mother Claire (Mia Goth again) is his one source of warmth. When she dies, the grief pushes Victor toward creating life on his own. Casting Goth as both mother and Elizabeth adds an unmistakable Freudian echo that del Toro clearly intends.
• Visual language: The color red follows Victor like a memory he can't shake — scarves, gloves, little splashes that stand in for love, blood, home, and loss. It's not subtle, and it's not meant to be.
• Theme shift: The novel makes the Creature's fury a response to neglect and the hubris of "playing God." The film pivots to survival and acceptance — compassion, grief, forgiveness — and softens the classic Gothic note of revenge and moral reckoning.
• Cast and numbers: Oscar Isaac is Victor, Jacob Elordi is the Creature, Mia Goth and Christoph Waltz co-star. Runtime is 2h 29m. Early Rotten Tomatoes score sits at 85%.
• Book basics, for context: Frankenstein by Mary Shelley was first published January 1, 1818. Goodreads currently pegs it at 3.9/5. Genres tagged to it include Classics, Horror, Sci-fi, Gothic, and Fantasy.

What del Toro says this story is really about

He frames it as a tale of two broken people — Victor and his creation — bound by pain, guilt, and a need for love. He has said in Netflix materials that it's fundamentally a father-and-son story, where being a creator means confronting how badly you can fail as a human being.

"Frankenstein is about somebody accepting life in the absence of death"

That perspective explains the film's gentler Creature and the pointed father/son thread. It also explains the choice to put Mia Goth in both key roles; it's a deliberate echo chamber of desire, grief, and replacement. It's a bold move, and it's very much the filmmaker writing in the margins of Shelley's text.

So... is it really Frankenstein?

Not in a line-by-line sense. Del Toro kept the novel's moral questions but traded the Gothic vengeance engine for something more tender. If you're here for Shelley’s exact plot beats — graveyards, relentless revenge, and punishment for hubris — this is a departure. If you're here for the ache underneath, it tracks.

Frankenstein is streaming in the US on Netflix.