Synopsis
The love affair between poet Percy Shelley and Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin resulted in the creation of an immortal novel, “Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus.”
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Cast
- Elle FanningMary Shelley
- Douglas BoothPercy Bysshe Shelley
- Bel PowleyClaire Clairmont
- Stephen DillaneWilliam Godwin
- Joanne FroggattMary Jane Clairmont
- Tom SturridgeLord Byron
- Ben HardyDr. John Polidori
- Maisie WilliamsIsabel Baxter
- Hugh O'ConorSamuel Taylor Coleridge
- Ciara CharterisHarriet Shelley
Recommendations
- 80
The Hollywood Reporter
Mary Shelley is a luscious-looking spectacle, drenched in the colors and visceral sensations of nature, the sensuality of young lovers, the passionate disappointment of loss and betrayal. But above all it is a film about ideas that breaks out of the well-worn mold of period drama (partly, anyway) by reaching deeply into the mind of the extraordinary woman who wrote the Gothic evergreen Frankenstein. - 70
Screen Daily
Mary Shelley is ultimately the story of a woman finding her own voice and asserting her independence and that will be the heart of its appeal. - 60
The Guardian
Shelley’s mistreatment by the literary elite because of her gender is a compelling, uniquely frustrating element and the film deprives us of the suitably grand exploration that it deserves. - 50
The Film Stage
If we spent a little less time on Mary and Percy, and a bit more watching Mary actually create, the result may have been different. Sadly, Mary Shelley is just not alive. - 50
IndieWire
For a film that chronicles the rise of a creator obsessed with reanimating the dead, Mary Shelley is utterly lifeless. It contains a sparkling and startlingly raw performance by Elle Fanning, but Haifaa Al-Mansour’s disappointing followup to her remarkable “Wadjda” doesn’t push beyond paint-by-numbers biopic posturing - 50
Variety
Impressively shot and suffused with a righteous feminist fire, the film is undercut by a confused and clunky script and a fundamental lack of thematic focus, turning an extraordinary story into didactic and disjointed melodrama. - 50
Slant Magazine
In its final act, the film abandons its fruitful investigation of belief systems in favor of a simplistic articulation of Mary's inspiration. - 40
CineVue
Mary Shelley is a film at relentless pains to tell us how poetic and ethereal its heroine is, but without remotely grasping the political and philosophical underpinnings of her work.
