Frankenstein

Have you ever looked this closely into a monster's eyes? Jacob Elordi's face is sculpted with 42 separate prosthetic appliances, his eyebrows erased, his skin polished like dead marble. But the moment he speaks—his voice so fragile, so utterly lost—you forget the makeup entirely. All that remains is a child abandoned by his father. Unlike other adaptations, del Toro's Frankenstein hides his creature's scars; Victor is no butcher, but a sculptor obsessed with perfection. I didn't recoil when I first saw the Creature—I was in awe. But the true gut punch arrives in the second half. When the Creature's chapter begins, the camera settles on his shoulder, and you walk with him. You are cast out with him. You starve with him. You learn to forgive with him. Oscar Isaac's Victor oscillates between arrogance and remorse so delicately that I couldn't decide whether to hate him or grieve for him. And that final frame... two lonely souls embracing in the ice. I've read Shelley's novel countless times. I've never wept like this.