Mary Shelley

Since I teach the novel Frankenstein to my seniors every year I felt that Mary Shelley was required viewing.  Unfortunately, for being a biopic about such an interesting and unconventional woman, I found it to be rather boring and conventional.  Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin (Elle Fanning) feels overshadowed by her famous parents, the feminist Mary Wollstonecraft who died shortly after she was born and the philosopher William Godwin (Stephen Dillane), and struggles to find her own literary voice.  Soon she meets the dashing poet Percy Bysshe Shelley (Douglas Booth) and, despite the fact that he has a wife and daughter, she decides to run away with him.  They live a tumultuous life together, plagued by creditors, Shelley's infidelity (possibly with her own step-sister Claire Claremont played by Bel Powley), and the death of her infant daughter.  She also feels overshadowed by Shelley's literary success.  Eventually the couple meets the poet Lord Byron (Tom Sturridge) and are invited to his mansion on Lake Geneva.  Byron issues the fateful challenge for everyone to write a ghost story to pass the time during a stormy evening.  Mary channels her feelings of loneliness and despair into the creation of Frankenstein's monster.  Once the novel is finished, she struggles to get it published because she is a woman.  She settles for having it published anonymously with a foreword written by Shelley, causing everyone to think that he wrote it.  These events are blandly portrayed as if the filmmakers were simply ticking boxes to get all of the biographical information included without taking any risks.  It is more like a made-for-TV movie than a theatrical release (how could they not mention her losing her virginity on her mother's grave?).  Furthermore, I found the narrative to be very disjointed.  Is she a feminist living an unconventional life or is she a victim of all the men around her?  Fanning gives an almost listless performance but even more maddening is the fact that there is very little chemistry between her and Booth.  In contrast, Sturridge and Powley are electrifying (pun intended) together and I was far more interested in them.  This was a little bit disappointing for me and I would recommend giving it a miss.