MovieChat Forums > Mary Shelley (2018) Discussion > It had its moments, but...

It had its moments, but...


I say this as a fan of so-called 'period dramas'; Mary Shelley was... well... boring. The entire cast seemed really wooden and even their attempts at depicting what must have been a great deal of passion, discussion, partying, and debauchery seemed forced. The lives these people led remain the stuff of fascination and debate even now, 200 years later. You would think then that the film would have even the slightest interest in telling that story. We don't even meet Byron until halfway into the film. The moment that the story competition is conceived is glossed over, as is the penning of Frankenstein itself.

I don't know. I'm not exactly a critic, but I feel disappointed. I expected this film would be somewhat more grand and interesting. Instead, we're left with something that pretends to be a love story, but never really gets around to telling it. Some of the 'facts' are also incorrect or misleading, and some of the most scandalous parts were omitted for reasons I don't understand.

It's like a really boring professor gave a lecture that made me fall asleep. The material had a lot of promise, but the movie falls flat.

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I understand that I am speaking to a ghost, ‘cause the OP blew this pop stand three months ago, but I just watched this on demand, and it impressed me. If you don’t love the English Ronantic poets, and/or Gothic novels, or even Penny Dreadfuls, I can understand your uninterest. I concentrated in the English Romantics as an undergrad, and I am enthusiastic about GOT’s Maisie Williams, so I just saw this on streaming. My heart sank at the (infinite) opening credits, with one production company after another after tax credits from various unimportant nations—but, hey presto!, I got into it after about 40 minutes. I speak only for myself. First, I’ve no idea about its historical accuracy, and I don’t care. It’s a movie, not a documentary. Some churl on another thread here bleted that “Shelly had sex with Mary when she was only 15, and they didn’t say that.” What the film DOES say is that child-birthing Mary stands in a publisher’s office YEARS after her hookup with Percy and declares that she is 18 years old and the author of Frankenstein or The Modern Prometheus. I enjoy this film for courageously depicting the depraviity, self-indulgence, hedonism, narcissism and yet withal—through a mist, darkly—the literal genius of a group of fops we know as the English Romantic poets*; but I APPRECIATE it more as Mary W. Shelly’s triumph over the sexism of her age and over the ongoing moribundity of the publishing industry, with which I am all too familiar. “People don’t want to read a book like this.” “Didn’t your husband really write this?” “Can Percy write a Foreword or Introduction for this?” They are, almost to a person, craven bastards. If you don’t care about the Romantic Poets, or the ongoing moribundity of the publishing industry, or Gothic literature, by all means, horseman, pass by. I, on the other hand, do care; hence my effort here. I say, for me, well done.

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* I specifically exempt William Blake from this description. First, he is more commonly categorized as a Metaphysical poet, like John
Donne, but I submit that his Marriage of Heaven and Hell was a precursor to the seminal Lyrical Ballads, usually hailed as being the dawn of Romantic poetry. Blake was certifiably strange, but he wasn’t a fop, he wasn’t a Hedonist, and he was a genius.

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I'm glad someone liked it, honestly.

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Well said R_Kane, agreed 100%.

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it lacked passion the characters seemed 'robotic' at times.

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We're getting another Mary Shelley movie.

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