‘Mary Shelley’ Directed by Haifaa Al-Mansour
Review by Peter Belsito
A teenage woman is trapped by the restrictions of her position in a male dominated society. The torrid true-life tale of how a passionate love affair fueled the creation of trailblazing writer Mary Shelley’s Gothic masterwork, Frankenstein.
Elle Fanning stars as Mary Shelley.
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (1797–1851) was an English novelist, short story writer, dramatist, essayist, biographer, and travel writer, best known for her Gothic novel Frankenstein: or, The Modern Prometheus (1818).
Her father was the political philosopher William Godwin. The film passes through the following — mostly traumatic episodes — of her busy, short life.
Elle Fanning is superb. It focuses on the relationship with Shelley and the visit to the peculiar home of Lord Byron.
Her life is worth knowing a bit. After her mother’s death — the philosopher and feminist Mary Wollstonecraft — less than a month after her daughter Mary was born, Mary was raised by Godwin, who was able to provide his daughter with a rich, if informal, education, encouraging her to adhere to his own liberal political theories.
In 1814, Mary began a romance with one of her father’s political followers, Percy Bysshe Shelley, who was already married. Together with Mary’s stepsister Claire Clairmont, Mary and Shelley left for France and travelled through Europe. Upon their return to England, Mary was pregnant with Percy’s child.
Over the next two years, she and Percy faced ostracism, constant debt, and the death of their prematurely born daughter. They married in late 1816, after the suicide of Percy Shelley’s first wife, Harriet.
Mary also edited and promoted the works of her husband, the Romantic poet and philosopher Percy Bysshe Shelley.
In 1816, the couple famously spent a summer with Lord Byron, John William Polidori, and Claire Clairmont near Geneva, Switzerland, where Mary conceived the idea for her novel Frankenstein.
The Shelleys left Britain in 1818 for Italy, where their second and third children died before Mary Shelley gave birth to her last and only surviving child, Percy Florence Shelley.
In 1822, her husband drowned when his sailing boat sank during a storm near Viareggio.
A year later, Mary Shelley returned to England and from then on devoted herself to the upbringing of her son and a career as a professional author.
The last decade of her life was dogged by illness, probably caused by the brain tumour that was to kill her at the age of 53.
The film premiered at Toronto International Film Festival 2017 and will be released in the U.S. in May 2018 by IFC Films.
ISA Hanway licensed film to Transmission for Australia, Polyfilm for Austria, Paradiso for Benelux, Levelfilm for Canada, Pyramaide for France, Prokino for Germany, Edko for Hong Kong, Challan for So. Korea, Ascot Elite for Switzerland, Curzon Artificial Eye for U.K.,IFC Films for U.S.
Director: Haifaa al-Mansour
Screenwriter: Emma Jensen and Haifaa al-Mansour
Producers: Amy Baer, Alan Moloney, Ruth Coady
Cast: Elle Fanning, Douglas Booth, Bel Powley, Joanne Froggatt, Tom Sturridge, Maisie Williams
TRT: 121 minutes
Rating: PG-13
