“We talk about family. And about fathers. And in Latin culture, the father is looming, a very looming figure,” says Guillermo del Toro with a laugh when talking about his latest film, Frankenstein.

The father of Mexican gothic cinema himself has a lot of experience exploring fatherhood. The theme and del Toro’s long-time immersion in it has earned him three Oscars, most recently for 2023’s Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio. For Frankenstein, del Toro once again has a paternal relationship at the center of his project.

The theme is everywhere from the moment of conception. “I just remembered, you know how you have code names for the films while you’re working on it,” says Oscar Isaac, the star of Frankenstein, while chatting with Latina Media Co and other members of the press. “The one for us was Prodigal Father.”

“For me, the melodrama in Frankenstein has to have that crazy streak,” says del Toro. “And now in the world we live in, a lot of people are scared of emotion. They find it really corny. I don’t. And I think emotion, as I’ve said in the past, is the new punk. Being emotional is the new punk. It’s the new anarchy.”

Anarchy may have been the last thing on Oscar Isaac’s mind when he chatted with del Toro about the role. “When we first met, it was just a general meeting. It wasn’t about Frankenstein. It was just coming over to his house,” says Isaac. “We just started talking for an hour or two hours. And at the end of it, he said, ‘I want you to be Victor in Frankenstein.’”

“I started to talk to Oscar, and I started writing it for him,” the famed director shares, “And about a year later, I showed him the opening 30 and the closing 30 pages.”

“When I read those last 30, it was tears streaming down my face. You know, his recognition of [the Creature] as his son, as him, also separate from him,” Isaac recounts. “[Victor is] kind of releasing him from this curse that was just destined to keep going and going and going. I found [it] incredibly, incredibly moving.”

With his telling of the story of a creator and his creation, del Toro makes the Creature (Jacob Elordi) empathic and vulnerable. But, at the same time, he’s showing Dr. Frankenstein’s tyrannical and maddening ways. “The truth is that the cruelty that he showed to his creation, his son, was unmatched, and he just didn’t see it at all,” says Isaac of his take on Victor. “And the fact that this [Creature] – who you could also see as his own inner child that he brought back to life – has to chase him down and break down the doors to say, ‘I forgive you’ was just so, so moving.”

“It’s okay if that’s a masculine world, that’s what the time was,” says Mia Goth, who plays the film’s sole female character in Elizabeth. “Mary Shelly [the book’s author] was born into a world of men. She lost her mother in her infancy and she was raised by a father – an absent father – and her life was shaped a lot by absence and pain. I think she must have been incredibly lonely.”

The English-Brazilian actress continues, “I think the reason she created Frankenstein, wrote Frankenstein, and the creature is probably… her trying to build a friend. I can imagine it’s a very isolating world, a very isolating experience to be a woman of that time.”

Gender is a human concern, affecting us all, which is clearly how del Toro sees it. “To me, what the movie tries to speak about is humanity, what makes us human. And I believe forgiveness and acceptance make us human, which are very scarce right now,” the Oscar-winner says. “And my fear is that at the end of whatever we’re going through. Whoever is standing, I hope is human. It doesn’t matter what it looks like. I hope they are human.”

“What I do as a director is… I’m a host. I make a big banquet for you. We all cook. And then you sit down and eat whatever the hell you want, you know? Some directors are like that,” he shares. “I don’t demand anything. I hope it’s clear – the flavors. I hope it’s clear, the boldness. I hope it’s clear, the Mexican-ness or the Latin American-ness.”

Oh, it is 100 percent clear. Clear that Frankenstein is pure Guillermo del Toro. It’s stunning on screen, the imagery with muted but rich colors. The textures are intricate yet familiar. The scenes feel grandiose and yet bring a homey comfort. The writing is complex and layered, yet as simple and delicious as flan.

Is it because Guillermo del Toro’s style is brilliantly mortal?

Yes.

Is it because at the heart of all of his work is his Mexican culture, complete with loud love and quiet humility?

Also yes.

I was surprisingly delighted at del Toro’s Frankenstein. I found it to be vulnerable and empathetic. But also unapologetically non-judgmental about a man and his story who have often been judged by literature and film for centuries. I don’t know that a more beautiful Frankenstein has ever, or will ever exist.

Guillermo del Toro has undoubtedly created a “large looming” father figure in his Frankenstein.

I would also argue that he himself is that and more in cinema, period.

Frankenstein is in select theaters now and will stream on Netflix on November 7.