[THEME MUSIC]
AISHA HARRIS: Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein is, of course, the classic Gothic horror tale about a misunderstood monster who was abandoned by his creator and shunned by society. So is there any director more perfectly suited to re-imagine it for a new audience than Guillermo Del Toro? Probably not. He’s called it the most important book in his life, and his years-in-the-making adaptation has finally arrived.
LINDA HOLMES: It stars Oscar Isaac as the scientist, and, in a gargantuan yet humanizing turn, Jacob Elordi as the Creature. It’s dark, epic, and preoccupied with the existential dread of life and death. Was it worth the wait? We think so. I’m Linda Holmes.
HARRIS: And I’m Aisha Harris. And today we’re talking about Frankenstein on Pop Culture Happy Hour from NPR. Joining us today is our fellow co-host, Glen Weldon. Hello, Glen.
GLEN WELDON: Hey, Aisha.
HARRIS: Also with us is Barrie Hardymon. She’s a senior editor for NPR’s Investigations team. Welcome back, Barrie.
BARRIE HARDYMON: Hi. Nice to see you guys.
HARRIS: Lovely to see you. Well, Frankenstein stars Oscar Isaac as Victor Frankenstein, a narcissistic 19th century doctor obsessed with the prospect of conquering death through science. A series of gruesome and ethically dubious experiments results in the development of the Creature, played by Jacob Elordi. He’s this towering being who’s alive, but– at least, at first– can’t communicate much beyond some grunts. Though, crucially, Victor does pull off his stated goal– the Creature is virtually unkillable. Now, Victor becomes increasingly frustrated with the Creature’s seemingly slow cognitive progression and begins to abuse him. This does not bode well for Victor and the many others who encounter the Creature and immediately assume the worst of him. The Creature seeks both retribution and a reason to find his eternal life worth living. Frankenstein is streaming on Netflix now, though, my goodness, this movie looks beautiful on a big screen. I’ve just got to say. [LAUGHS] But I’m giving it a little bit of a way of my thoughts on this. Linda, why don’t you kick us off? How do you feel about Frankenstein?
HOLMES: I really loved this. I think thematically, it’s very interesting. As you said, it really is about the relationship between life and death and the fact that, for Victor, the valuing of life is a very self-interested thing. It’s very much about his accomplishment and his achievement.
HARRIS: Yeah.
HOLMES: It takes him a very long time, I will say, to even begin to understand that if you were to successfully create life, you would owe something to it.
HARRIS: Sometimes you have to send it to college.
HOLMES: Exactly.
[LAUGHTER]
HOLMES: But as much as I appreciate it thematically, I think what really blew me away about it is that this is a really, really beautiful movie, even though it’s a very gruesome movie, in many respects. There’s some really gross stuff [LAUGHS] that goes on in this movie. But nevertheless, you know, it has a kind of a lonely enormousness– huge rooms, huge lab, huge landscapes. And it really emphasizes, I think, the isolation of Victor and how that’s part of his madness, is that he isolates himself, and that then he isolates this Creature that he creates. I feel weird even saying Creature. I’m like, that’s so dehumanizing. But that is–
HARRIS: Yeah.
HOLMES: –what they call him, and especially when the Creature is kind of hot.
WELDON: Yep.
HOLMES: So anyway, we can talk a lot about it. I mean, I think the performances are great.
HARRIS: Yeah.
HOLMES: I think Jacob Elordi is extraordinary. I think Oscar Isaac is wonderful. But I very much appreciated just– you know, Guillermo Del Toro, the first time you’re introduced to a woman character, she’s going to have some diaphanous veil, like, floating out, and she’s going to be dressed all in red. I mean, it’s just gorgeous. And I appreciated that very much.
HARRIS: Yeah, yeah. Barrie, we were talking offline just before this, and you called it “cozy, but gruesome,” which I think is a great, great description of it. Tell us more about how you feel.
HARDYMON: Well, like Linda, I agree with, as usual, much of what she said. And I think the cozy part has to do with that kind of– it is so gorgeous. Like, the first diaphanous veil that we’re talking about is, like, a mission statement for the movie.
HARRIS: Yeah. Oh, and it’s so him. It’s so him.
HARDYMON: And I want to tell you, crimson is not the only jewel tone here. But the movie is– you know, as much as it is sort of cozy and wonderful and gorgeous, I found it had a long tail in my head the way that the book does, even though there are some maybe questionable changes in it. And it’s very much a movie for these times.
HARRIS: Yeah.
HARDYMON: And there will be a meme of Oscar Isaac sitting on those stairs and saying, I didn’t think about after creation.
HARRIS: [LAUGHS]
HARDYMON: Like, there is no way that anyone who is thinking about or worried about the progression of technology– and in particular, AI right now– isn’t thinking about this in this movie. But I also– and this is one of the things about this book in particular, is, it is written by a woman who had a very, very particular worldview. And it is both large, but it is domestic also.
HARRIS: Yeah.
HARDYMON: And he really gets both– I mean, Victor Frankenstein is nothing so much as a really annoyed postpartum mom during a part of the movie. And I really felt for him.
HARRIS: Yeah.
HARDYMON: So in any case, I could go on and on, and I think I will, but in pieces.
[LAUGHTER]
HARRIS: Thank you, Barrie. Glen, as soon as I saw this at Toronto International Film Festival, I was like, I feel like Glen is going to like this. Glen, how did we feel about this?
WELDON: Glen kind of liked this. Yeah.
HARRIS: Yeah.
WELDON: I mean, as you mentioned, if we’re going to get the story again, this is the guy to make it. I mean, he has made films in the past that are swoony and feverish and melodramatic, like Crimson Peak, and he’s made movies in the past with the hideous outcast who turns out to be more human than the humans around them, like Shape of Water. So you slap these together– swoony, melodramatic, stacks the emotional deck in favor of the monster– that is the elevator pitch for the novel Frankenstein. I mean, like, that’s the jacket copy on the back.
HARRIS: Yeah.
WELDON: As Barrie mentioned, they made several changes to the bones of the story that I’m still trying to figure out what work they’re doing. Why are they there? But you know, we were lucky enough to see this on a big screen. The people listening to this episode are going to be able to see it on their small screens. [LAUGHS] I wish you could–
HOLMES: Sorry.
WELDON: –see it on a big screen.
HARRIS: Sorry. Well, I hope you have, if you’re listening to this. And maybe you have already–
WELDON: Maybe you have.
HARRIS: –in the theater, yeah.
WELDON: ‘Cause if you ever– it’s 2 and 1/2 hours long, yes, admittedly. But if you ever get bored with what’s going on in the foreground, you can just get lost in the details of the set dressing. [LAUGHS] It’s such a gorgeous movie to look at. I hope as many people as possible saw it in theaters, but seeing it at home is just as good.
HARRIS: Yeah. You’ve already mentioned Crimson Peak and Shape of Water, but one of his more recent films, Pinocchio, which was obviously another adaptation of a very well-known and very often told story, it kind of reminded me a lot of his take on that as well, because that is another story that is dealing with mortality and this idea of, like, what it means to be alive. And I loved this adaptation of Frankenstein. I have not– I’m going to admit here, I have never read Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. I have seen the 1931 version of Frankenstein, and I’ve seen Bride of Frankenstein. So that is my, like, starting point here. But I have to pull on Jacob Elordi here because he is– he has grown so much out of Euphoria into– you know, he did Priscilla. He played Elvis in that. And now, here, this movie solidified for me that Jacob Elordi– who is very tall– is able to use his height and his stature to turn him into, like, this kind of, like, sexy man, half-man– sort of man here. And there’s moments in this film that are sort of erotic. Like, it’s like, it’s both a father-son story between Victor and the Creature, but then also, there are moments– there’s a very beautiful scene where they kind of, like, almost do a little dance or, like, kind of embrace, in a way. And I was just like, this is gorgeous. Like, everything about this is beautiful. It’s complicated. And I just really dug, basically, everything about this film. It made me sad. It made me think about my own life and ponder my own existence. And I don’t know if you can ask much more from this story. I do want to kind of turn to the changes you alluded to which is what about that didn’t work, or what were you questioning in those changes?
HARDYMON: So this is one of these things where I went into it saying there are probably going to be some changes. This is kind of an odd book. It’s split up in this odd way. And it is ripe for an English class because of the way that it is set up. And so I thought, I’m going to go in believing that this is his version of not just a cover band. This is, he’s going to rewrite it in some ways.
HARRIS: Yeah.
HARDYMON: And obviously his heart is with the Creature. But also, he has really made this very much like a father-son dynamic. And I felt like he was much more sort of villainous in this. Like, he’s very much a tragic figure in–
HARRIS: You mean Victor? Victor.
HARDYMON: Victor, excuse me, sorry–
HARRIS: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
HARDYMON: –in Mary Shelley’s version. And I really wasn’t expecting it. And I was slightly irritable about it until, you know, we sort of got into the thing. Like, I thought we were telling too much and not showing enough.
WELDON: Yeah.
HARRIS: OK.
WELDON: One of the changes I wondered about was, why add an extra layer of complication to the Elizabeth character, played by Mia Goth? Why make Elizabeth Victor’s brother’s fiancée, instead of just having her be his fiancée, as she is in the book? What work is that doing? It turns out that this is exactly what Barrie is alluding to, because it ties directly into what Del Toro’s approach is, which is perfectly in line with his whole body of work, which is always the monster is the hero. So he sets out to make Victor even more of a jerk than he is in the book, and by extension, make the Creature more sympathetic. I mean, the Creature does some really nasty stuff in the book that gets shunted off–
HARRIS: Right.
WELDON: –to other characters in this film.
HARRIS: Right, yeah.
WELDON: Isaac is playing Victor as this, you know, preening fop who keeps telling everyone what a genius he is. He abuses the Creature. He tries to get with his own brother’s fiancée. All of this is so we never waste any time, like, empathizing with Victor.
HOLMES: Yeah.
HARRIS: Yeah.
WELDON: And there’s something, you know, not subtle about that. At one point in the film, somebody turns to Victor and says, you are the monster. And it’s like– [SIGHS]
[LAUGHTER]
WELDON: I’ve been watching–
HOLMES: Yeah.
WELDON: –this film for over two hours. I get it. But yeah, some other changes like that. That’s what he’s doing, I think.
HOLMES: It had been a long time since I read this book. I did read it, but long ago. So I went back and I read, of course, the Wikipedia summary, which is what you do when you haven’t read the book in a long time. Or haven’t read the book, but–
HARDYMON: Or have a test.
HOLMES: –I have in this case. But anyway–
HARRIS: [LAUGHS]
HOLMES: –what struck me about the changes is, it shifts more toward the wrongs done to the Creature, more purely about that. And I think it ties into– and one reason I think it may have happened is that through past interpretations of this story, there has been this idea of the monster/Creature as this hulking, terrifying– the green square head and all that stuff. You know, the reductive way that this becomes a story about a big, scary–
WELDON: Yeah.
HOLMES: –Halloween monster is maybe one of the reasons why this interpretation shifts back even more strongly toward, think about this as not just the wrongs done to this Creature, but focusing on the wrongs done to the Creature by the creator, as opposed to just by society in general. I think you’re absolutely right that Del Toro’s heart is always with the Creature. And I think he thinks that’s what the story is about. And I think I tend to agree. Because there’s a fine line between, is the moral of the story “it’s a mistake to mess around with life and try to create life,” or is it “it is a moral error to try to create life”?
HARRIS: Yeah. Yeah.
HOLMES: Because there’s a little bit of a difference between, this is a logical thing for somebody to try as a scientist, and then it turns out it has terrible consequences. And he struggles and suffers because oh, my gosh, it’s had terrible consequences, right? Or is it something that grows out of vanity? And I think in a way, that ties back to what Barrie was talking about with some of the parallels to tech development.
HARRIS: Yeah.
HOLMES: Part of the question that it raises, then, if you think about that parallel, is, is the way that some tech advances are being handled, is it just like people just don’t understand what the potential risks are, or–
HARRIS: Or.
HOLMES: And it can be both, right? Or–
HARRIS: Yeah.
HOLMES: –is it the vanity that tells people, whatever the risks are, I’m going to go forward because I have a vision and a mission, right?
HARRIS: Yeah.
HOLMES: And it’s funny to me that Del Toro is sort of talking about the potential folly of fanatically pursuing your vision, because in some ways, he is a pursuing-your-vision guy, like, a director who is about pursuing your own vision. And in fact, when I look at this film, one of the things I love about it is, I just look at it and think, I think this is his movie that he wanted to make. And it is, as I said, so incredibly him.
HARRIS: Just because of the times we’re living in, I had no issue with, like, seeing Victor as a villain, like a terrible person.
HOLMES: Yeah.
HARRIS: Like, it’s just, you know, these people exist, and we need to rein them in. What I kept sort of pulling on is what Linda was sort of talking about, which is this idea– I mean, yes, you can apply it to tech and AI, but also, you can apply it to actually deciding to have a child or [INAUDIBLE].
HOLMES: Yeah.
HARDYMON: Absolutely.
HARRIS: And it’s like, none of us asked to be here, [LAUGHS] but then we’re here. And the fact that so much of this journey– that the way this movie is structured is the first part of the film is mostly Victor telling his side, and then the monster gets to tell his side. And his side is that, you know, you created me. I can’t die. This is terrible. Like, no one accepts me. He does find at least one person who does. He has a horrible, like, awful existence, and he’s trying to wrestle with that. And that, to me, was the most profound aspect of it. And it’s like– like, that doesn’t mean you necessarily don’t want to be here, but it’s like, how do I make the most of what I have when the world is so terrible, and so terrible to me specifically? And could Guillermo Del Toro have been telling that same story 10 years ago, 15 years ago? Like, again, he’s been conceiving of this as an idea for a film for probably his entire career. He’s loved this book so much. But I don’t know. I’m really grateful that we get it in the now because of everything. The way it feels so in conversation with everything that is happening, it reveals the sturdiness of the original Frankenstein.
HOLMES: Right. Right, right, right.
HARDYMON: Yeah.
HARRIS: Even though, again, I have not read it. [LAUGHS] But like, the fact that you can adapt it, and it can still be relevant, that’s what makes it such a great story.
HARDYMON: The bones are sturdy. And I actually think– and again, I really loved this movie. But I actually think where it sort of– you know, the parts that are weaker for me are the ones that tend to lean away from the bone. So it’s like, the father-son dynamic, which is really banged over your head– like, there is the dad who hits him, and then he hits the Creature in exactly the same way. And there’s this thing about inherited trauma and stuff. That, to me, was where it really felt like, you know, we sort of lost the sort of robust parts of the thought of what it means to make something, right?
WELDON: Mm-hmm.
HARDYMON: And actually, it gets further away from the parts of parenthood that are difficult and I think maybe more interesting. He’s so desperate to rehabilitate everybody. And yeah, like, he wants to show how much he loves this.
HARRIS: Yeah.
HARDYMON: You know, he makes Victor this terrible villain. And then Victor gets the line of, you know, what you’re talking about, which is, go out there and live, man. Go make the most of it.
HARRIS: Yeah.
HARDYMON: And it’s like–
WELDON: Yeah.
HARDYMON: –come on. Like, this guy– like, please, you know?
HARRIS: Yeah.
HOLMES: I get that.
HARRIS: Yeah, that’s fair. That’s fair.
HOLMES: I agree with Barrie that the father-son dynamic is a little bit– maybe a little bit too enunciated. I actually think because you start the film– and it’s not a spoiler. It’s the beginning of the movie. Because you start the film– you know, the way that Victor gets to tell his story is that he’s been injured, and he’s telling it to the people who are trying to save his life. I actually think you start off with a default sympathy for him, because that’s what happens when you show somebody injured at the beginning of a movie–
HARDYMON: Yeah.
HOLMES: –and being–
HARRIS: Yeah.
HOLMES: –pursued, right?
HARDYMON: Sure.
HOLMES: It’s almost like Del Toro is saying, this is how you– we maybe think about a monster story, right? Here’s a guy who’s injured being chased by this very, very, devastatingly destructive monster.
HARRIS: Yeah.
HOLMES: And then as he tells his story, it begins to invert that. But I think he starts with that place of monster– terrifying, person– victim, and then starts to kind of unravel that dynamic and explain how– you know, I mean, there’s a reason why the phrase “you’ve created a monster” came into being. And as far as I know, it’s because of this story. And so heaven knows, there are plenty of applications of “created a monster.”
HARRIS: Yeah.
HOLMES: You know?
HARRIS: Yeah.
WELDON: But this is a lot closer in tone and spirit to the novel than most versions–
HARDYMON: For sure.
WELDON: –of this tale that we get–
HOLMES: For sure.
WELDON: –certainly the 1931 Boris Karloff version that you mentioned, Aisha. Because the thing about the novel– I would argue the most important thing about the novel is that the Creature grows intellectually, philosophically–
HARRIS: Yeah.
WELDON: –aesthetically. And–
HOLMES: Yeah.
WELDON: –he still gets rejected. That is either a critique or an endorsement of the British class system. So no matter how good your education–
HARRIS: [LAUGHS]
WELDON: –breeding is all that matters, buddy.
HARRIS: Yeah.
WELDON: So the Karloff film kept him a lumbering brute so he could be scary. The book Creature, [LAUGHS] he reads Plutarch and Goethe and Milton.
HARDYMON: Milton.
WELDON: And he gains insights on where he fits into creation. So he’s out here going, you know, “I ought to be thy Adam, but I am rather the fallen angel whom thou drivest from joy for no misdeed”–
HOLMES: Right.
WELDON: –while Karloff was out here going, “fire bad,” right?
HARRIS: Yeah, yeah.
WELDON: And I think that that growth is the important thing here. And I think Elordi’s great at both. Like, he’s good at launch Creature. He’s good at Creature 2.0–
HARRIS: Yeah.
WELDON: –because, you know, he is so pitiable that you understand his confusion. And– this is the other thing that Del Toro is doing– you justify his rage. Like, you get it.
HARRIS: Yeah, for sure.
HOLMES: Yeah. And I will say, Glen–
HARDYMON: That’s right.
HOLMES: –if you’re right about this critique of the class system thing, then that means that Jacob Elordi is not the only bond between this movie and Saltburn.
WELDON: There is that.
[LAUGHTER]
HARRIS: Well, you should tell us what you think about Frankenstein. Did you get a chance to see it on the big screen? I hope so. But if not, I hope you enjoy it on Netflix. Either way, it is a cozy, gruesome movie for the fall. Find us on Facebook at facebook.com/pchh and on Letterboxd at Letterboxd.com/nprpopculture. We’ll have a link in our episode description. Up next, what’s making us happy this week?
HARRIS: And now it’s time for our favorite segment of this week and every week, what’s making us happy. Barrie, what’s making you happy this week?
HARDYMON: For my happy, I want to stick with the theme of juicy, delicious science fiction. And so I want to recommend a book by Ian McEwan of Atonement fame called What We Can Know. It has so many different applications. It’s for the people that loved Cloud Atlas. It is for the people that loved Possession. It is for the people that loved Station Eleven. It has something for everybody. It is a post-apocalyptic novel. It also, by the way, has elements of romantasy and dark academia, if that’s your thing.
HARRIS: It’s all over.
HARDYMON: It takes place very far in the future. The climate has come to get us. And a researcher is finding the truth behind a lost poem. It is one of those books where every single section ends with something that makes you see everything that came before in a different light. It is something that made me feel– I know this is going to sound really depressing, but it made me feel very hopeful in the same way that Station Eleven did, that when the apocalypse comes, love will remain, and so will poetry, crucially. [CHUCKLES] And it is one of these things where I thought, oh, I actually could recommend this to everybody who listens to this podcast because it has so many different kinds of things. It is called What We Can Know by Ian McEwan. And if you haven’t liked anything of his since Atonement, I do want to say, you should pick this up. It is better than Atonement.
HARRIS: A ringing endorsement.
WELDON: Wow.
HARRIS: Thank you, Barrie. All right. Linda, what is making you happy this week?
HOLMES: Well, you know, there’s a thing that happens when you have a segment called What’s Making Me Happy This Week, where sometimes you really want to recommend something that is awesome, but it’s incredibly sad and depressing.
HARRIS: Mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah.
HOLMES: So I just want to set out by saying, this is recommendation. Netflix has a new documentary called The Perfect Neighbor.
HARRIS: Oh, god. I saw this. Yeah.
HOLMES: It’s made up primarily of police body cam footage. And it follows the story of a feud between neighbors that unfortunately ended in a fatal shooting. It is essentially the story of a white woman who lives in a neighborhood where she is constantly yelling at a group of mostly Black kids who play in an area near her house. It’s not her yard, but she considers it her yard, I guess, I would say. It is sort of about how this just escalates and escalates over time. The police are unhelpful because, in many ways, they are ill-equipped to intervene in this kind of situation. I think the plain-spoken nature of this documentary and the fact that it is made up mostly of body camera footage, and later, kind of police interview footage and things like that, makes it extraordinarily powerful. It is not a happy story. It is a very sad story. But it is, I think, very good at communicating the dangers of conflicts that are racist in a lot of their origins and the difficulty of using police as your only response when you’re having this kind of conflict. It is called The Perfect Neighbor. It is a very, very good film. I know Aisha saw it.
HARRIS: Yeah.
HOLMES: I do recommend it. It’s streaming on Netflix. It’s a tough sit, but I think it’s another thing that I think will really stick with you. And it is well worth watching.
HARRIS: Thank you, Linda. Recommendation. As Linda said, it won’t make you happy, but it’s absolutely worth watching. So thank you, Linda. Glen, what is making you happy, or just recommending? What are you recommending? [LAUGHS]
WELDON: Well, the British actress Patricia Routledge passed away. That’s not making me happy. She passed away a while back. And if Americans know her, they probably know her from her British sitcom called Keeping Up Appearances. Look, that was broad sitcom humor. She nailed it. But if you want to see her in her element, you got to go with the monologues by Alan Bennett called Talking Heads– which I’ve talked about before. But since she died, I have been listening to The Complete Talking Heads audiobook because there is an intimacy to these monologues that headphones really bring out. With Routledge in particular, you can hear the subtlest shifts in her vocal performances because she finds in these women that she’s playing, she finds the pathos. But she never gives in to it. She uses it. The women she’s playing refuse to acknowledge that they’re unhappy in any way. And the energy they put into that denial is what keeps them going. So in these monologues, a character talks directly to us, and they tell us their version of events. And because they’re so meticulously written and performed, we get to fill in the actual story around them, that they don’t have any idea what they’re telling us, but they’re telling us a truth. And sometimes, at the very end of the monologue, you can see them kind of glimpse, like, [LAUGHS] a fleeting glimpse of the truth, but then they bat it away. Because of course they do because that’s what humans do. So the Patricia Routledge monologues in Talking Heads are called “A Woman of No Importance,” “A Lady of Letters,” and “Ms. Fozzard Finds Her Feet.” So what’s making me happy is slapping on a pair of headphones and having a tiny, shattering revelation in my living room that’s on The Complete Talking Heads audiobook.
HARRIS: Thank you, Glen. Lovely. Well, what’s making me happy this week is a movie that I saw at Toronto, the Film Festival last year, not in 2025. And it is Cloud. It is finally here. I am so glad that people have been able to check this out. This is the action thriller directed by Kiyoshi Kurosawa, the director, of course, behind, you know, the psychological horror movie, Cure, Pulse. And it stars Masaki Suda as Yoshii, who is this factory worker who has a side hustle, as so many people in our times do now. He hustles as an online reseller. His business begins booming, you know, he leaves his factory worker job. But he has some sketchy practices that come back to bite him, first, via online harassment, and then eventually, it spills over into real life. I don’t even really want to say too much more about it, because I just think the less you know going into it, the better. It is such a movie that, like, I think most people will enjoy in some way because it feels both of the moment, but also, it will be timeless. Because who doesn’t love an action thriller? Who doesn’t love one that is, like, really focusing on, like, the human condition in a very modern way? So that is Cloud, the Kiyoshi Kurosawa film. It’s streaming on Criterion, but you can also rent it VOD. And that is what is making me happy this week. If you want links for what we recommended, plus some more recommendations, sign up for our newsletter at npr.org/popculturenewsletter. That brings us to the end of our show. Barrie Hardymon, Glen Weldon, Linda Holmes, thanks so much for being here and for being alive.
HARDYMON: Thank you.
HOLMES: Thank you.
WELDON: (SINGING) Being alive.
HARRIS: [LAUGHS]
WELDON: Thank you.
HARRIS: Oh, yeah. Sondheim. Guillermo. Who cares? Yes. [LAUGHS] This episode was produced by Mike Katzif and Janae Morris and edited by our showrunner, Jessica Reedy. Hello Come In provides our theme music. Thanks so much for listening to Pop Culture Happy Hour from NPR. I’m Aisha Harris. And we’ll see you all next week.
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