MARY SHELLEY (2017)

Studio:       IFC Films
Director:    Haifaa Al-Mansour
Writer:       Emma Jensen
Producer:  Amy Baer, Alan Moloney, Ruth Coady
Stars:     Elle Fanning, Douglas Booth, Stephan Dillane, Joanne Froggatt, Ben Hardy, Maisie Williams, Bel Powley, Tom Sturridge

Review Score:

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Summary:

A tumultuous love affair with poet Percy Shelley inspires Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin to pen her seminal novel Frankenstein.

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Synopsis:     Show/Hide Spoilers

Distracted by books and aspirations of becoming an author that put her at odds with her stepmother Mary Jane Clairmont, Mary Godwin is sent by her book dealer father William to live in Scotland with family friend William Baxter and his daughter Isabel. At a reading hosted in Baxter’s home, Mary meets rising poet Percy Shelley and the two of them begin a romance.

Mary’s stepsister Claire Clairmont feigns illness in order to summon Mary back to London. Mary’s romance with Percy resumes when he comes to London and becomes William Godwin’s protégé.

Mary discovers Percy is married when his wife Harriet Shelley confronts Mary with their daughter Ianthe. The revelation causes a stir in the Godwin home, although Percy explains he is in love with Mary and not Harriet. Mary Jane confronts Mary about bringing scandal to the family. William warns his daughter to stop seeing Percy and kicks Percy out of the house.

Mary decides to run away with Percy. Claire insists on going with Mary. While Claire lives with them, Mary and Percy continue romancing as well as writing, although the stigma surrounding their affair limits professional opportunities.

Percy, Claire, and Mary host Percy’s friend Thomas Hogg for dinner. Hogg tries forcing himself on Mary when they are alone. Mary tells Percy about the encounter, which leads Percy to suggest that Mary experience other sexual relationships. Suspicious that Percy might be sleeping with Claire, the couple argues about monogamy and infidelity, but later reconciles.

Mary, Percy, and Claire go to a theater where a stage show about electrical science inspires Mary to think about bringing the dead back to life. At the same show, Claire meets poet Lord Byron, which leads to a sexual affair between the two of them.

Mary gives birth to her daughter Clara. Threatened by creditors, Percy forces Mary and Claire to flee their home in a rainstorm, despite Mary’s concerns for the baby’s safety. Clara ultimately dies, creating more strife between Mary and Percy. Mary’s despair inspires further writing.

Claire becomes pregnant with Lord Byron’s baby. Byron invites Claire, Mary, and Percy to live on his estate in Geneva with another friend, Dr. John Polidori. Mary’s conversations with Polidori further her ideas about scientific reanimation.

Claire becomes despondent after Byron belittles their romance as an insignificant dalliance. Percy becomes similarly troubled after learning his wife Harriet committed suicide. Mary and Percy eventually leave Byron’s estate after Mary confronts Byron over mistreating Claire.

Mary finishes writing Frankenstein. Following several rejections, a publisher agrees to take the book, but only if its authorship remains anonymous. Percy is asked to write an introduction to give the appearance that he wrote the work. A fight about gender dynamics in their relationship and how the book is credited leads to Mary and Percy separating.

Polidori visits Mary. Similar to Mary’s experience, Polidori reveals that Byron stole his manuscript for “The Vampyre” and published it under Byron’s name.

Mary sneaks into her father’s bookstore where William Godwin hosts a reception celebrating Frankenstein’s success. Seeing Mary in the crowd, Percy publicly reveals to the men assembled that Mary actually wrote the book. Mary and Percy reunite. William arranges for a second edition of the novel to be published with Mary properly credited as its author.

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Review:

“Mary Shelley” opens with onscreen text quoting a passage from Frankenstein.  While choir-like warbles from an operatic voice echo underneath, Elle Fanning then narrates Mary’s internalized words as she reads to herself in a picturesque graveyard dotted with mossy tombstones. Thunder peals overhead. Mary needlessly looks up to confirm a storm in the sky before collecting her skirt and rushing through a fog-shrouded forest toward home.  A sweeping camera subsequently captures the improbable bustling of a backlot’s London street choked with children jumping rope, women filling food baskets, and men bailing hay.

For good or for bad, the movie identifies its operating order within this single three-minute sequence.  “Mary Shelley” means to cram a kitchen sink of costume drama clichés into an overlong mood exercise obsessed with thickly laid theatricality.  Even a static establishing shot of a nighttime sky can’t refrain from having a star shoot across the screen.

Without worrying about tailored details, think up a list of common elements employed in any romanticized movie set in 19th-century England.  Two young lovers giggling as they run inside from the rain. That same couple sprinting into each other’s arms as music swells in time to a hungry kiss.  The sound of horse hooves clopping on cobblestones. A soundtrack scored predominately around haunting piano melodies.  Women in bonnets and crinoline.  Men in top hats and tightly wrapped neckwear.

“Mary Shelley” checks every expected box and then some.  The only item omitted is a compelling incentive to remain engaged in a stiff telling of a story that should be passionately torrid instead of timidly tame.

“Mary Shelley” recounts the time in the titular author’s life between meeting her muse, poet Percy Shelley, and struggling for recognized authorship of her best known novel, Frankenstein.  Among other things, this was a period of musical chair lovers as the pair penned and denned with Mary’s stepsister Claire and Dr. John Polidori at Lord Byron’s hedonistic Geneva estate.

The movie doesn’t dip into subjects too scandalous however.  Suggestions of infidelity involving Mary or Percy remain precisely that: suggestions.  Their romance is portrayed as traditionally pure, with argumentative issues mostly seeded by Mary’s assertion of individuality against unfair gender dynamics.  The hurdle of Percy already having a wife when he meets Mary sees itself hurriedly jumped as a narrative inconvenience to be acknowledged, not truly addressed.  “Mary Shelley” merely pauses to belch such hiccups before reconciling the relationship and returning to a PG-13 tone.

This biopic might supplement, but certainly won’t supplant a proper biography.  In the interest of streamlining this slice of Mary’s story, the script fudges facts such as the existence of Mary and Percy’s second child.  It also fabricates others like a cheesy climax where Mary’s issues with her father and husband are resolved simultaneously with swift sentimentality.  Any student counting on “Mary Shelley” to fill in the blanks of a book report would be best advised to search elsewhere.

Taking liberties allows “Mary Shelley” to relax into a Lifetime-like groove of soap opera staging.  Pomade existed in Percy Shelley’s lifetime, though it’s difficult to not snicker at his boy band coif complementing a pretty pout, as though he just stepped off the set of “Twilight.”  Ribbing aside, the film’s art and costume departments do terrific work recreating the era. Too terrific to be frank. Sets are stuffed with so many people and props that the fantasy stays filmic as only a vague representation of reality.  The cinematography of slow pans and constant cuts to/from horse-drawn carriages becomes routine enough that the movie cannot transcend its medium.

“Mary Shelley” makes all the requisite motions for constructing an effectively plain period piece.  The film looks the part, although it unfolds rigidly.  Storytelling focused on functional formalities permits acting to be no better than acceptable.  Wall-to-wall dialogue dries out melodrama.  It’s a challenge to ascertain how much, if any, of the visualized effort leads to an increased understanding of the subject.  More or less, “Mary Shelley” comes out of its end credits as an inessential study on one of literature’s essential authors.

Review Score:  50

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