Relationships
The Cost of Unspoken Stories
The new "Frankenstein" film shows the power of speaking before it’s too late.
Posted December 4, 2025 Reviewed by Gary Drevitch
Key points
- Storytelling uncovers pain that silently shapes relationships.
- Untold stories block trust, closeness, and emotional presence.
- Power and fear often silence the stories that matter most.
The 2025 film Frankenstein reframes Mary Shelley’s story as a narrative told across two worlds: Victor speaking on a freezing ship after being rescued, and the Creature recounting his long journey of wandering and despair.
Healing Through Storytelling
The film is structured through storytelling itself—Victor’s tale told under duress, and the Creature’s own response as a counter-story he had held inside for years. Their exchanges suggest how many relationships fracture when we fail to tell the stories that hold our pain rather than the failure to care.
These stories often begin in childhood trauma, shame, or fear and remain unspoken for years. They live inside marriages, parent-child relationships, and sibling dynamics. They remain buried partly because the act of telling them feels impossible. The film becomes a reminder that storytelling is often the only bridge we have left.
One reason storytelling feels healing is that it finally allows pain to move. Research on emotional disclosure consistently shows that telling the story of a difficult experience lowers physiological stress and increases closeness in ways that silence cannot. In the film, the Creature’s posture slowly becomes gentle as he speaks; his voice changes from rage toward sorrow. When Victor listens, his expression changes as well: He no longer sees the Creature as a threat but as a being shaped by abandonment and confusion.
Such moments reflect what attachment research has long documented—that people tend to become more forgiving when they understand the origins of another’s pain. Storytelling allows each to see the other not as an adversary but as a person who has struggled, longed, feared, and misjudged. In their final moments, story becomes the only place where they can finally meet.
Barriers to Storytelling
Yet the film also shows why storytelling is so hard to begin. Victor resists telling his story because he fears it will sound like blame toward his professors, his parents, or Elizabeth. Many of us carry similar hesitation that speaking about our suffering can feel like pointing a finger. Childhood trauma adds another layer of silence, burying memories beneath years of avoidance. Victor cannot speak about the creation because facing the memory threatens the identity he has built.
Another barrier comes from power. Victor holds status, wealth, education, authority, and people with more power in a relationship often reveal less. He fears that speaking will make him appear weak. So he hides. And as the film makes clear, hiding the story damages him. It distorts his relationship with Elizabeth and fuels his panic whenever he sees the Creature. Silence becomes a barrier to love, not a protection from it.
Perhaps the most painful reality emerges in the final act: Sometimes we wait until it is too late. Victor begins telling his story only when his body is failing. The Creature arrives moments too late to reconcile with him. Their conversation, though filled with recognition, is born from circumstances that offer no more time. Many of our relationships face the same risk. We wait until children grow up, until partners pull away, until resentment replaces curiosity.
The Description, Reaction, Connection, Reflection, Application Model
This is where the DRCRA model becomes useful. DRCRA—Description, Reaction, Connection, Reflection, Application—is a process I created for my undergraduate course, "Intimacy, Marriages and Families," as a way to help students learn course materials while also building a sense of belonging and well-being.
In the classroom, DRCRA allows students to describe experiences without judgment, like a news reporter; name their emotional responses, like a misinformed audience realizing what they feel; connect those reactions to learning or relationships, like a conscious and informed audience beginning to understand; reflect on what the experience means as a pattern rather than a single moment, like a scholar; and apply what they learn to their own lives, like a practitioner putting knowledge into action. It has become a core part of how I teach because students consistently report that it helps them feel appreciated and understood within the classroom community. When applied to relationships outside the classroom, the same structure can make storytelling feel safe, manageable, and nonblaming.
We can see traces of DRCRA in the structure of the film’s narrative itself. Victor begins with Description—telling the captain what happened in the lab, step by step. The Creature follows with Reaction—naming the confusion, loneliness, and longing that shaped his actions. Both move toward Connection by linking their stories to their shared relationship rather than treating their pain as isolated. Reflection occurs when they each acknowledge the forces that shaped them—childhood trauma, societal pressure, fear—without excusing harm. And even though Victor’s death limits what can happen next, the Creature carries out the Application by choosing a path that finally breaks the cycle of revenge. His final act, placing Victor’s body on the pyre, is a gesture not of anger but of release.
In real life, people can use DRCRA to begin telling the stories they have avoided. Start with a simple Description of what happened, even if it is only one small moment. Share your Reaction by naming the emotion you carried, without explaining or defending it. Add Connection by saying how the experience shaped the relationship. Offer Reflection by acknowledging the forces that influenced the situation: family patterns, cultural expectations, childhood wounds. And then move toward Application by suggesting one small change you hope for, even if that change is simply more open conversation.
Storytelling can be felt as sign of weakness, but it is not. It is a sign that we recognize the limits of silence. The new Frankenstein reminds us that what hurts us is not the story; it is the years spent avoiding it. DRCRA helps us speak before it becomes too late, offering a structured path back to understanding, recognition, and healing.
