The most unsettling image in Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein isn’t Victor Frankenstein (Oscar Isaac) dissecting bodies or Jacob Elordi’s eerily elegant Creature — it’s Victor’s recurring habit of downing glasses of milk throughout the film’s long, atmospheric runtime. That repeated, domestic gesture becomes oddly disquieting amid the movie’s darker rituals.
Portraying a character gulping whole milk has long been a shorthand filmmakers use to suggest something off-kilter or sinister. From A Clockwork Orange to Quentin Tarantino’s films, that simple act often signals moral unease. Javier Bardem’s Anton Chigurh drinks milk in No Country for Old Men; Allison Williams’ chilling scene in Get Out features a similar sip; and Luke Skywalker’s green milk moment in The Last Jedi instantly communicates that something is very wrong.
Image: Lucasfilm/DisneyOne especially useful comparison is Homelander from The Boys: his fixation on milk signals both moral corruption and arrested development. In much the same way, Victor’s reliance on milk underscores del Toro’s portrait of him as emotionally stunted and childlike.
To dig into that choice, Polygon asked members of the film’s creative team how they interpret Victor’s milk habit. Director Guillermo del Toro and Oscar Isaac were unavailable for interviews, so the production crew’s insights illuminate the motif.
For cinematographer Dan Laustsen — del Toro’s longtime DP on films such as Crimson Peak, The Shape of Water, and Nightmare Alley — the imagery is straightforward: “He’s still a child, and he’s still innocent because he’s drinking milk,” Laustsen says. “A normal guy would drink red wine or whatever.”
Kate Hawley, the film’s costume designer (also known for Crimson Peak and Pacific Rim), frames the milk as a personal ritual. “He’s a manchild,” Hawley says. “He’s an angry child that’s sort of grown up. The milk is a wonderful, delicious little ongoing personal ritual. It links him directly back to his mother. I love that selfish, childlike aspect of Victor.” She adds that attentive viewers will spot empty milk bottles accumulating outside Victor’s apartment early on, underscoring how habitual the behavior is.
Production designer Tamara Deverell traces the motif back to Victor’s fixation on his mother. “He was mother-obsessed,” Deverell explains. “He was always a kid who never grew up, until he became a father of the Creature. So drinking milk is kind of a symbol of adolescence, of being connected to your childhood.”
Deverell also suggests a complementary reading: the milk gestures toward Victor’s single-minded scientific ambition. “He doesn’t drink,” she says. “He’s focused. He’s a scientist; a doctor.” In that light, the milk is both a sentimental crutch and a symptom of obsession.
Whatever the intended nuance, the gesture leaves an impression — and makes it hard to view an ordinary glass of milk in quite the same way after Frankenstein.
Frankenstein is streaming now on Netflix.
Source: Polygon
