Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein uses Mia Goth’s dual role to expose Victor’s deepest wound

Frankenstein has been adapted yet again. But this time, Guillermo del Toro gives it a shape that's unlike anything we have seen before. It is gothic, as is the original Mary Shelley novel, and yet so devastatingly human. It is arguably the most emotional monster story of del Toro yet. The story is simply about a man who creates life from death. But simplicity does not birth art in such an inexplicable way. It is really about a man who never recovered from losing the first person who made him feel loved.

Mia Goth plays two characters in the movie. She is Victor Frankenstein’s mother and his brother’s bride. A creative casting decision is what one might call it. But soon it becomes clear that it’s a reflection of Victor’s broken heart. And, a deliberate one at that. His mother is his whole world. She is the one source of affection in the strict household he grew up in.

Everything inside him collapses when she dies. He turns cold, detached, and angry at his father. He blames him for her death and starts resenting authority. That anger and emptiness become the roots of his obsession with life and death. And soon, he turns to the dark angel to fill his hollow. He plays God not only for power but to fill a void that nothing else can touch.

Del Toro’s Frankenstein uses the same actress for both women to show that Victor keeps searching for the same kind of love he lost as a boy. The mother and the woman become mirrors of each other. He is seeing traces of the comfort and warmth that vanished when his mother died as he looks at his brother’s bride. The movie suggests that Victor is but a man stuck chasing the same love in different people. It is all rooted in his longing to be cared for again. It is the longing to bring back what was taken from him.

Disclaimer: This article reflects the writer's opinions. Readers' discretion is advised.

Frankenstein - The blurred lines of love and loss

Frankenstein goes way beyond being a tale about science and horror. It is a story about the confusion between love, grief, and memory. Victor’s mother represents safety and unconditional affection. The loss becomes a wound that never heals when she dies. That wound opens again when he meets his brother’s fiancée. He finds himself drawn to her.

But what he is really drawn to is the feeling she reminds him of. It is as if the movie visualizes the thought that the person he loves becomes the person he once loved. Hence, the casting choice feels like a symbol of his inner conflict.

There is a scene where Victor admits that he no longer feels interested in death. He wants to live for the first time in years. That moment shows how his feelings for his brother’s bride awaken something buried under years of darkness. But healing is not what happens after. Things get all blurry. His desire is tied to grief, and his love is tangled with guilt.

The dual casting could be a representation of how he's trapped in a cycle. He fixates on his mother’s death and then on a woman. And finally, on creating life itself to undo what death took from him. Every act of his seems like a desperate attempt to sort of get back what he’s lost.

We don’t really know every intention behind the filmmakers’ choices in Frankenstein. Some of it may be interpretive. It could be based on what the movie allows us to see. But the visual and emotional evidence support the reading that it feels intentional. Still, this Frankenstein stands on its own as a creative work. It’s not Mary Shelley’s story repeated word for word. And that’s a good thing. The changes give us room to explore the adaptation’s unique choices and understand Victor’s psyche freshly and timelessly.