![]() Mia Wasikowska plays Edith Cushing, the bookish daughter of a successful self-made Albany businessman and widower in the waning days of the Victorian era. Its DNA spliced from the core strands of gothic romance, the film begs to be given the dues of a Rebecca or The Innocents, but is really just a subpar Dragonwyck rolled in a tasty supernatural burrito. Hell, one of the few things that kept Peter Jackson’s regrettable Hobbit trilogy watchable was the unexpected moments of bizarre design that clearly stemmed from del Toro’s latent role in their production.Īll of this is a roundabout way of saying that, expectedly, del Toro’s latest, Crimson Peak, is a gloriously designed spectacle, but it is also in so many other ways a farce. Look at the elven guards of Hellboy 2, or the faun of Pan’s Labyrinth. He could be the Sven Nykvist of production designers. He could be the Paddy Chayefsky of production designers. If Guillermo del Toro wanted to be a production designer full-time, he could be the Edith Head of production designers. Because let’s face it, Guillermo del Toro is a great designer, but he’s rarely a great storyteller. ![]() His TV series The Strain, adapted from his trilogy of airplane novels, is the sort of trash I greedily ingest between episodes of HBO-or-similar shows, but still find myself half-watching my phone the whole time. Parts of the Hellboys delight, and The Devil’s Backbone is a beautifully put together if frustratingly simplistic fable. There’s Pan’s Labyrinth, a film I flat-out adore, and there’s Pacific Rim, a big dumb movie that shamelessly tickles all the happiest childish parts of me. It stems from enjoying most of his films, but rarely loving any of them. I have this thesis on Guillermo del Toro. ![]() Goth chic: Mia Wasikowska and her poofy nightdress in Crimson Peak
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