Mary Shelley (2018)

Elle Fanning has yet to find that role which is up to showing off her immense talent. The idea her of her giving a tour de force performance as one of history's most celebrated English female writers and minds is a great one, but the film Mary Shelley doesn't feel like it accomplishes this.

Mary Shelley feels like a very standard sort of period drama. Perhaps some of the expectations arise as it is made by Saudi film maker Haifaa al-Mansour, whose debut feature, Wadjda, showed such promise. But Mary Shelley seems determined to make the title character into a rather traditional romantic hero and not the radical many understand her to be. In fact the film spends a lot of time making the radical around her a negative influence on her life. And once it does that, a questionable choice at best, it then turns on a dime at the end to give her the happy ending a film like this needs, even if it is anachronistic.

The film also continuously makes references to Shelley's most famous work, Frankenstein. This makes a certain  amount of sense. Illusions to the story abound. But what was interesting is how much the film seems to be saying how her life is all building towards her writing of that novel. An interesting theory but one which perhaps reduces her even further. For a film which seems to be about showing us who she is beyond A Modern Prometheus, it ties almost all aspects of her life to that story.

Mary Shelley is watchable despite the stylistic choices I was not a fan of but just always feels far more standard than I had hoped. And Fanning is still waiting for that role which can give her the opportunity to bite off all that she can chew.

Mary Shelley
Starring: Elle Fanning, Douglas Booth, Bel Powley, Tom Sturridge, Stephen Dillane, Maisie Williams
Director: Haifaa al-Mansour
Writer: Emma Jensen