Mary Shelley

Even if you're not fully aware of the Shelleys' real-life sexual and social radicalism, there's a nagging feeling that every time the film flirts with their true characters and lifestyle, it cowers in fear and reverts to shallow moralism. Even the production design reflects a pedanticism at odds with the film's subjects and moral. Most of its up-and-coming cast relish their parts, and it shows, so it's not absolutely boring. Just a missed opportunity.

Call this a #MeToo period film. The idea that Mary Shelley modeled her portrait of an unloved monster abandoned by her narcissistic and indifferent creator on Percy's treatment of her (seducing, impregnating and walking away) is novel and interesting; that said, you can see the limitations in the budget and the movie too frequently talks about its ideas rather than dramatizing them. Flawed but interesting.

Although both Shelley & her baby daddy were privileged enough to have learned how to use flowery language to present their id-driven worldview & lack of wisdom as philosophy, the fact is she behaved like a spoiled (what was so relatively bad about her life?) hippie & built a relationship w/ a dick who walked out on his daughter. It makes her thoroughly unlikeable. Having said that, she does pay for her mistakes & her story here is one of the most compellingly unpredictable bios I've ever seen

okay movie

How anyone can make such a dull movie about the life of Mary Shelley is beyond me. At least Tom Sturridge has fun playing Lord Byron.