Guillermo del Toro has spent his career humanising monsters, once calling them the “patron saints of our blissful imperfection”, so his adaptation of Frankenstein was always going to be a match made in heaven. The Mexican film-maker’s passion project turns Mary Shelley’s famous novel about the dangers of hubris and playing God into a touching tale about generational trauma, parental abandonment and the healing power of forgiveness. It’s a meticulously crafted, visually sumptuous and powerfully told story that deserves to take home that best picture Oscar.
But it’s not going to be easy. The gothic fantasy seamlessly blends horror, sci-fi and melodrama in its opulent retelling; here Oscar Isaac plays the eccentric scientist, Victor, who brings a hulking creature (Jacob Elordi) made up of dead body parts to life. Fantasy, horror and sci-fi, however, are genres that notoriously don’t do well at the Academy Awards, apart from in the technical categories. Yes, Del Toro is one of the few film-makers to get a best picture Oscar for a fantasy/sci-fi film in 2018 for his amphibian love story, The Shape of Water, but that win was an exception, not the rule.
