Film Review: Mary Shelley

Director: Haifaa Al-Mansour

Starring: Elle Fanning, Maisie Williams, Douglas Booth

Running time: 120 mins

Mary Shelley was a very real, very interesting and radical person who lived a very modern, out of time life. But while her most famous work, Frankenstein, has taken on a cult status and resides in the psyche of people all over the world, the author's personal history has taken a back seat up until now. A new biopic focusing on her childhood and the years running up to the publication of her novel, sheds some light on who she was as a person and on the events that led to the inspiration of a work that changed the face of literature for good.  

Directed by the first Saudi Arabian female director, Haifaa Al-Mansour (Wadjda) Mary Shelley is a contemplative, carefully thought out (albeit slow) record covering the known details of the real figure's life. The daughter of two revolutionary writers and political philosophers' Mary Wollstonecraft (author of The Vindication of Women's Rights) and William Godwin, Mary was educated on an extensive literary, philosophical and political reading diet, having access to her Father's library and bookshop, and the opportunity to learn subjects like Latin, which were normally out of bounds for young Georgian ladies. Women's rights and the social constraints caused by marriage were two of the ideas that Mary's upbringing allowed her to question, and there was a certain liberality to her home life which comes across well in the film.  The relationship between Mary and her stepmother, played by Joanne Froggatt, is also tackled in a realistic way – although I feel that Mary Jane Godwin should have been a more formidable character, having been described as " a vulgar and worldly woman" by a journalist who knew her, and in Mary Shelley's own words, "a woman I shudder to think of". I also noticed that interestingly, Mary's older sister Fanny had been removed completely from the story, although her stepsister Claire Clairmont is very prevalent – possibly the addition of an extra character could have detracted from the two main women in the story, but it does mean that the dynamics between the two sisters are more obvious, as they are thrown together through circumstance rather than genuine friendship.

Casting Elle Fanning as the indomitable Mary was an inspired choice.  She brings both an outward fragility and an inner strength to the part which mimics how I imagine Mary would have been.  And her depiction of Mary's isolation, pain and fight against prejudice and intolerance is completely believable and heartbreaking. Bel Powley also gives a very credible performance as Claire Clairmont and hits just the right balance between childlike and temptress, so that you never quite know what she is going to do. Douglas Booth is excellent as Percy Bysshe Shelley – bringing out a realism to Shelley's hero-like persona while also giving him a liberal amount of selfishness and waywardness. But one of the best and unexpected performances was that of Ben Hardy's John Polidori – a man who shared many parallels with Mary in the treatment he received by others, being a man of a lower class (rather than a woman) who also had to fight to gain respect from his peers.

Yet despite the strong cast, the film somehow seems to struggle with an overlong script and screen time, overwhelmed by the act of trying to fit in a catalogue of historical facts and events that threaten to obliterate the characters themselves. Perhaps a bit more discernment in the editing room would have made the story flow better without the long pauses in between.  There were also a couple of times when the script became a bit hysterically romantic, but that is always a hazard with historical dramas.  I was really pleased that Mary Shelley is finally stepping into the spotlight she deserves, and I hope it's just the beginning of the public's interest in her.

Did you know? Mary Shelley is the first film in Hollywood history to be directed by a Saudi female