The tender food of “Frankenstein”

Before he learns speech, before he learns cruelty, before he learns the terrible weight of a creator’s indifference, The Creature in “Frankenstein” learns hunger. And then — astonishingly — he learns generosity. Guillermo del Toro renders this with a small sunlit vision: a hulking figure perched on a rooftop, savoring a loaf left out for the spirit the villagers imagine him to be. It’s a fleeting tableau, but it reveals the whole story: even the most forsaken creation reaches for connection the moment he’s given something warm to hold in his hands.

I kept turning that scene over in my mind after I watched the film.

Del Toro’s “Frankenstein” isn’t a food movie by any stretch, but the moments that lodged themselves in my memory all involved nourishment — offered, stolen, shared, withheld.