Frankenstein

This British ITV-channel movie is probably too ambitious for its TV format. It generally fails to balance its divergent genres and affects, from broken-family narrative, to dangers of science parable, to corporate/government surveillance plot, to generic modern-day monster movie, and I don't much care for any of that, nor for the gimmicky camerawork involved to obscure the monster's face, the use of security-camera footage, or the oddly-red-letterboxed prolepsis introductory scene. The movie also tends to lose site of the story it's adapting, Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein," in its updating of it and the gender change to its titular protagonist (as well as role changes for other characters). Perhaps, I've just seen too many Frankenstein films since reading the book, but I was somewhat intrigued merely by such novelty and the problems it poses to the adaptation.

The 18th Century setting, its being written in the early 19th Century and that Victor Frankenstein is a man are important to the novel's parthenogenic myth of creation without a mother. Especially given that Victor's experiment was inspired by alchemy, as opposed to the science springing from the Enlightenment, Shelley's story may also be read as a critique of misogynist notions of homunculi. Because it's an update and because its Frankenstein is a woman, this TV movie must throw out this central theme from the source it's adapting. This is where it's partially clever.

As far as updating the story, it's mostly uninteresting. An opening title card relates the movie's world, which appears to be suffering from a volcanic winter, to 1816, "The Year Without a Summer," in which Shelley conceived the story. This is an unnecessary connection, and it's ignored for most of the movie. Additionally, since science is no longer a solitary endeavor, this modern Frankenstein collaborates with a team of scientists with the usual hierarchies of academic, corporate and government funding. Even "I, Frankenstein" (2014) had a partial notion of that, though.

What's interesting here is the gender reversal--or rather, it's interesting how the filmmakers handled it. This Frankenstein is mostly called "Victoria," her last name only being partially revealed in a shot of a burnt copy of her paper for stem-cell transplant research. She has a son with Henry Clerval, Victor's friend from the book, and the son is named "William," the name of Victor's brother. Other characters take names from the novel, too, as well as from the Universal Frankenstein films, including scientists named "Ed Gore," as in Ygor, and a sinister female version of Dr. Pretorius. As in the book, William dies, but not from the monster this time. In a conflict of interest so big it blows a plot hole through the movie, Victoria is creating organs via stem cells, and her son is dying from organ malfunctions. She injects her son's DNA into the created organs, so that they'll be a match.

Shelley's novel is an almost mother-less world, but this movie turns this around by making its protagonist the personification of motherhood, both naturally, via William, and, later, by scientific mishap. At first, however, when William dies, Victoria decides to terminate the science project--even though she already knows "it's alive" (which, of course, is quoted in this movie). In effect, she requests an abortion of the life she's created. The metaphor is heightened by the womb-like tank where the creature grows. It's a similar conception to that in Kenneth Branagh's 1994 "Mary Shelley's Frankenstein." Whereas Branagh's Victor acted out the creation scene with a fervor akin to masturbation and was, then, repulsed by what he created, Victoria looks upon the growth in the womb with almost motherly affection, but she injects the DNA into the tank with the scientific precision of artificial insemination.

Although William's death changes this, and Victoria requests an abortion of her creature, the authorities force the "pregnancy," along with the requisite assistance from a bolt of lightning, to term. As with the Universal series, the monster is a childlike figure, and this movie further references the Boris Karloff versions with a scene where the monster meets a little girl, with the bolts and flat-top helmet they place on him and by the windmill turbine that's struck by lightning. Initially, Victoria reacts to the monster, like Victor did, with disgust, but eventually her motherly instincts return, as she defends the creature's life. Henry also plays a part in the movie's gender reversal from the book, including Victoria's claim that he'd abandoned William in the past. Overall, this isn't too bad of a Frankenstein for managing to alter a story that's been rather patriarchal, whether as a critique of it or not, from novel and through most other movie adaptations, to this matriarchal creation.

Interesting take on the story. It feels like this is a screen adaptation of Dean Koontz's Frankenstein books but I can find nothing that corroborates that. There are several drastic similarities.

Dr Victoria Frankenstein is the head of science project UX which is using stem-cell research to engineer a human heart. The project has reached this point without approval and understandably the heads of the funding to be nervous. Victoria presses on regardless, changing the project to start the development of an entire organ chain. Nobody mentions the extreme conflict of interest that exists in Victoria's young son currently dying and indeed of an entire new organ chain. When her son dies, Victoria agrees to let the project be terminated but by then the funders want it to continue on the QT. A freak lightening strike and rampant cell growth sees the experiment explode anyway, with tissue everywhere. However it soon transpires that not all organic matter has been accounted for and "something" has made it out of the system.

This film sat on my harddrive for almost six month before I got round to watching it. It wasn't that I was busy for all this time but more than the idea of an ITV drama being any good was foreign to me and I decided to watch other things instead. When I finally watched it I must admit it was almost because I felt I "had" to and did not expect much. On the contrary though the film is an effective version of the famous story that is strong in several areas. The direction avoids the usual "TV" feel that many of these one-off ITV dramas seem to have and instead is very atmospheric and dark.

It is not as smart as I would have liked and some aspects of the material seems very rushed due to the time constraints, while others are all a bit too convenient in the name of keeping things moving and limiting development time required. However these are forgivable and the film does move along well, with plenty of dramatic moments and, surprisingly dark content. A brutal child murder caught me off-guard, as did some other moments, making it feel more than an attempt to make me watch adverts (which lets be honest, some ITV one-off dramas are all about). Although they are rushed the characters are quite good, particularly the monster. What it looks like is clear but, while the film controls direct vision of it, it isn't a big deal and there is no big reveal. This helps the viewer feel like it is the story not the effects that the makers are interested in.

The cast are pretty good. McCrory leads the cast well with a solid and pained performance. I would have liked to see her given a harder character and more time to work with but regardless she still does a good job. Purefoy is not as good and he feels quite unnecessary and I think you can see this in his performance. Support is solid enough and has a few recognisable faces in there in the form of Benedict Wong and Fraser James. Bleach's Monster is well played as it has enough to be afraid of but also enough to make you believe that it is just frightened.

Overall then a quite effective version of the famous story. It has its faults in the speed it does things and the odd "convenient" narrative device but mostly it is atmospheric, dark and interesting.

This movie presents an interesting twist on the old story... but without the genius of Shelly's tale. It simply presents the original question: are there areas in which science should not venture? However it fails to answer that question, or even present it in a viable format. The name Frankenstein doesn't even apply here. Rather than a creation of intent this is an incident of accident. Lacking someone to blame then, the viewer is left with the question of what point the film maker is trying to make, besides the obvious. The answer at the end of the film is: none.

I do believe it's rather well-done as it stands on its own. The story is somewhat riveting once it gets started. There are some areas near the beginning of excessive slowness (how many scenes do we need of someone walking slowly toward an oddly unlocked-door?), but once they get past that stage it keeps the viewer wondering what is going to happen next.

What happens next though is that the story goes nowhere. Without spoiling the film, it comes down to the end with just a great big question mark... but no reason to ask the question. In the book there was no doubt: the doctor was the real monster (after all, Frankenstein is the name of the doctor, not the creature). In this presentation there is no monster to speak of. The doctor had no intent of creation, the creature has the mentality of a cornered wild animal, and the government (normally the real monster in such films) is put in a situation that it can only deal with things one way, and it does the best it can under that situation (in typically slimy covert government manner, of course).

In short while the film is interesting it doesn't come close to having any real impact, nor does it really make a point. As such it falls into the realm of "mediocre" in all areas of production and barely eeks out a 5 from me. The current average rating is even lower than that, which tells me I'm being somewhat generous in giving it 5 stars. The writers and director tried to make a point, but missed the mark and barely skates by on the name of the film... which has nothing to do with the plot or characters. They could have named this "Monster Among Us" and probably done as well... without raising expectations and lowering potential ratings.

There are lots of things that don't work, but the biggest it's claim to be modern re-telling of Mary Shelley's novel. Very little of the novel is present beyond some surface details but the plot of mix the 1931 film and generic monster of the week type stuff.

It would have worked better to forget the Shelley/Frankenstein angle and just turn it into a generic creature feature. Then is might be passable and the many plot holes and lack of tension would be less painful.

There are good actors here but that's about it. Big letdown overall and not recommended for Frankenstein fans, especially of Mary Shelley's genius.