Jacob Elordi Is the Soul of Guillermo del Toro's Frankenstein

"The achievement felt unnatural, void of meaning," mulls Oscar Isaac's Victor Frankenstein right after he gives life to his creation, played by Jacob Elordi, in Guillermo del Toro's adaptation of Mary Shelley's novel. It's an odd thought to have at that point, since Victor has just spent most of the story obsessively and breathlessly pursuing his unholy dream of reanimating the dead. And del Toro has accompanied the good mad doctor's journey with similar cinematic conviction."

"The screen is awash in cadavers and severed limbs and skulls and peeling patches of skin and ornate scientific devices and buckets of blood, all shot with gliding cameras and low angles and color-coordinated costumes and deep dark shadows and massive sets and accompanied by a seemingly never-ending Alexandre Desplat score. I don't think anyone yells, " It's aliiiive!" in this picture, but someone probably could at any point and it wouldn't feel entirely out of place."

"For that we must at least give some credit to Jacob Elordi. "Of all the parts that made this man, which one holds his soul?" asks Elizabeth Harlander (Mia Goth), the pious object of Victor's affection and fiancée to his brother, as she looks at the jigsaw-like construction of the creature's body. It's a good question, since Victor would deny the existence of something like a soul."

A sumptuous, gore-filled Frankenstein adaptation combines ornate production design, sweeping camera work, and a persistent Alexandre Desplat score to create a visually overwhelming experience. The film stages reanimation with operatic intensity and an abundance of macabre detail, producing a first half that feels electrically constructed but emotionally vacant. Jacob Elordi's portrayal of the creature supplies a crucial emotional center, rendering awakening, curiosity, and pain with immediacy and humanity. Oscar Isaac's Victor is consumed by ambition and skepticism about the soul, and Mia Goth's Elizabeth frames the moral question of what, if anything, animates the assembled body. The movie ultimately shifts from spectacle to feeling as the creature comes alive.

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