Source: Entertainment Weekly

For Oscar winner Guillermo del Toro, Frankenstein is about three core elements. The first two were always part of the filmmaker’s vision for this distinct take on the classic Mary Shelley gothic tale: pain and regret.

The third is forgiveness, something, he says, he only included in the movie after having an important conversation with his father, Federico del Toro.

“My father was kidnapped in ’98, and when he came back, he didn’t talk about it,” del Toro shares in an interview with Entertainment Weekly at the Toronto International Film Festival. “And then before he passed, I said, ‘We have to sit down and you gotta tell me what happened.’ That was very important for me to understand the man.”

The movie, for del Toro, is not about forgiving someone in a simplistic sense. It’s about “forgiving someone and forgiving yourself into being,” he continues. “What you realize is a grudge takes two prisoners and forgiveness liberates two people. I thought I could make the movie, but then I went, No, thank God it didn’t happen until now.”

Frankenstein is a piece about fathers and sons. Oscar Isaac stars as Victor Frankenstein, the famed scientist of classical literature who brings a creature (Jacob Elordi) to life through a monstrous experiment. Joining the duo in the cast are Mia Goth as Elizabeth, fiancée to Victor’s younger brother (Felix Kammerer); David Bradley as the old blind man; Charles Dance as Victor’s father; Christian Convery as young Victor; and Christoph Waltz as arms merchant Harlander.

Speaking more broadly, del Toro says Frederico’s kidnapping had a tremendous impact on his work at large. “When somebody’s taken, the family is taken,” he explains. “Both sides are paralyzed. I told him our side and he told me his side.”

As a parallel, Frankenstein deals with the two perspectives of Dr. Frankenstein and his creature. The director originally wanted to make two movies, one for each perspective, but he ultimately decided to merge both tales into one.

“Every time you have drama on film is great,” del Toro continues. “Every time you have drama in your life, it’s coming from a false understanding of life. Either you think you deserve more or you don’t deserve this. And the word ‘deserve’ has nothing to do with living. It just is. And the movie tries to show those things.”

The father-son relationship was a big topic of conversation when Isaac first met with del Toro, though the actor didn’t initially understand what he was in the running for.

“When we first find [Victor], he is this ragged man at the end of the Arctic,” Isaac previously told EW. “He is terrified. He is running. You don’t know if he’s running away or running through something or what’s going on. As Victor tells his tale, he begins with his father and his own creation. ‘How was I created? How was this person created? And if I’m gonna tell you about this horrible secret that I have, I must tell you how it got there. And that’s with my own father.'”

Netflix held Frankenstein’s world premiere at the Venice Film Festival in August, and now the film hits TIFF Monday night.

The film will first open in select theaters this Oct. 17, followed by a release on Netflix Nov. 7.

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