CELEBRATING THE 200th ANNIVERSARY OF MARY SHELLEY'S ‘FRANKENSTEIN’ IN CONJUNCTION WITH UVIC’S “FRANKENWEEK”
Mary Shelley is a luscious-looking spectacle, drenched in the colours and visceral sensations of nature, the sensuality of young lovers, the passionate disappointment of loss and betrayal. But above all it is a film about ideas, one which breaks out of the well-worn mold of period drama (partly, anyway) by reaching deeply into the mind of the extraordinary woman who, at 18, wrote the Gothic evergreen Frankenstein; Or, The Modern Prometheus.
Making Mary into a woman in control of her life and choices rather than a victim of cruel and insensitive men, director Haifaa Al-Mansour (Wadjda) shows how the struggles of her youth swiftly matured her understanding of women's place in the world. Elle Fanning’s vivid portrayal of the writer as a young author shows an understanding that, for all its sadness and distress, her life shone with greatness. She is a survivor who has gone through hell and come out on the other side, scarred but wiser, while the famous men in her life—her publisher father William Godwin, her lover Percy Bysshe Shelley, and her mentor Lord Byron—have to hang their heads and acknowledge her talent.
–The Hollywood Reporter
“An intelligent balance between romantic drama and literary biography.” –Screen International
