Frankenstein: The Anatomy Lesson

The Anatomy of Obsession

By the third month of any film shoot, the behind-the-scenes footage usually starts looking the same: tired eyes, fixed smiles, and everyone insisting the work is pure magic. Most making-of documentaries are glossy little ads dressed up as access. *Frankenstein: The Anatomy Lesson* doesn't feel like that. The 45-minute companion piece Netflix released alongside Guillermo del Toro's giant adaptation plays less like a brochure than a collective attempt to talk through an obsession.



Del Toro has been circling Mary Shelley's 1818 novel for what feels like his entire life, and this documentary makes clear that he isn't approaching it as just another assignment. He says, "For me, it's the Bible," and he means it. What makes *The Anatomy Lesson* compelling isn't only the look at those immense practical sets, though Victor's cluttered laboratory, with water running through it like a living organism, is catnip for anyone who loves old-school craft. The documentary keeps nudging us toward del Toro's personal stake in all of it. When he links *Frankenstein* to *Pinocchio* by describing both as stories about "abnormal kids" with disappointed fathers, the whole emotional engine of the feature suddenly snaps into place.

The film is also generous about the work of cinematographer Dan Laustsen and production designer Tamara Deverell. You get to see how the operatic, saturated look is built rather than simply admired from afar. One of the best stretches shows the crew tuning the frame so Mia Goth's Elizabeth glows in greens while Oscar Isaac's Victor burns inside reds. It's a quiet but vivid lesson in visual storytelling. Some people watching the feature have bristled at the perpetual, gliding camera, saying it gives parts of the movie a strangely video-game slickness. I don't think every one of those moves lands, but seeing the coordination required does make the ambition hard to resist. This isn't a digital sketchbook. They built the world and let the camera haunt it.



The interviews with the cast help too, especially because the gothic surface is stripped away. Oscar Isaac sits down and neatly dissects Victor Frankenstein's ego, describing the urge to create life as a revenge strike against the death of his mother. He has always been good at playing brilliant men whose intelligence barely conceals panic, and you can see how deliberately he shaped Victor's conceit. But the documentary's real surprise is Jacob Elordi. After spending the last few years embodying handsome, poisonous young men in things like *Euphoria* and *Saltburn*, he shows up here buried under Mike Hill's practical makeup and talking about vulnerability. He says the creature's movement came from Japanese Butoh dance and, wonderfully, from watching his golden retriever. It sounds ridiculous until you picture the performance again and realize how much of its sorrow lives in that awkward, innocent gait.



By the end, *The Anatomy Lesson* feels less like a marketing extra than a record of a lifelong fixation finally being given shape. Del Toro has surrounded himself with people capable of turning his private nightmares into wood, wire, cloth, and silicone. Maybe the feature itself buckles a little under that weight; that's a separate argument. What this documentary captures beautifully is the rare sight of artists caring about monsters with almost religious intensity. It's hard not to feel a little envy watching that kind of devotion in action.