Frankenstein (Del Toro) — 2/5
I had given up on Del Toro, mostly because I only like one of his movies, despite the critical acclaim he gets for more than just that one of his movies. But my wife wanted to watch it, and who am I to deny the love of my life, my sweetie, my darling, my friend. Watching it, at least, helps me to define some things I don't like about his style. It's obvious that he's an aesthetically-driven director, but I don't like his aesthetic. I find that his choice of colors are at odds with the movies he's making. I think his movies want to feel like films, but everything looks so digital. Despite everything he does having this aura of horror, everything looks so pristine, so calculated. That thing behind the curtain has been carefully placed. Every scene is a painting, but lacks the loose expressionism of painting, and of dread. His overuse of blue and green tones creates not this aura of strangeness, but of fakeness. It's taking those hues of colored versions of those early Whaley monster movies, multiplied by the neon spray of Spencer Gifts darklight posters. It has a Pottery Barn-level of patina to make it look old, even though new, but just makes it look stuck in the late 90s. Is Guillermo even seen as a horror director? Is that just my perception of other people's perception of him? I'd classify him more as a maker of gothic melodramas. Base level romances or father-son catastrophes, but with a weird monster-who-isn't-a-monster. It's the aesthetic appearances of horror in name only. Man's the real horror, yeah, sure, okay. Anyway, this movie: Jacob Elordi's Frankenstein is compelling until he tells his own story and has this weird awkward way-too-heartfelt smile. Oscar Isaac as father turns from joy to contemptuousness too quickly, and the eventual forgiveness comes too easily. I think there's probably an interesting story about how fathers have no patience for their children, how they can create them but can only mold them so far. But that exists only on the edge of this movie. These Netflix movies just give big names a lot of money, when what they really need to give them is an editor for their ideas. I feel like the Netflix experience is on the other side of history to the studio system. It's an argument against free reign.
