Review of Mary Shelley, directed by Haifaa al-Mansour

Once upon a time, I used to buy all of movies through iTunes. This was something I did throughout high school, as I had no money or a debit card. I would end up with all of these iTunes gift cards, and I would acquire movies through those ways. I had no idea about streaming back then, or it really wasn’t that big of a concept yet.

Mary Shelley was one of the movies I bought in 2018. I had a major thing for Elle Fanning even back then, which has extended through all of these years. I’m still obsessed with her, and am so sad I missed her Broadway debut in Appropriate (my performance was canceled, and I bought tickets for the extended run when she had left).

I was also obsessed with Douglas Booth. So it was a win-win situation, and I purchased the movie and watched it in 2018 when I had moved away to NYC for college. Then I never thought about it again until one day I decided to randomly reread Frankenstein.

I then went down a rabbit hole when it comes all things Mary Shelley, then rewatched this film.

I’m rambling already, so let’s get into the review!

The story of Mary Shelley and her brief romance, as well as how she wrote Frankenstein.

We first meet Mary in this movie before she is a Shelley. Originally, she is Mary Godwin, the daughter of the famous feminist Mary Wollstonecraft. Wollstonecraft died soon after giving birth to Mary, so she was raised by her father and the woman he would eventually marry after his first wife’s death.

When Mary is sixteen, when the film opens in the present day, she lives with both and her stepsister Claire. She doesn’t. have the best relationship with her stepmother, but she’s very close with Claire. Mary goes to Scotland, where she meets a very radical man: Percy Bysshe Shelley, who is a married man.

That doesn’t stop them, and they elope anyways with very little money to their name. Claire comes with them as he borrows money from his father’s estate to get them a home in Bloomsbury. Tension brims early on though as Shelley flirts with Claire, and then one of his friends tries to get with Mary.

Mary then complains to Shelley about the flirting, and he disappoints her by saying love should be free and they should be able to have other partners. The three of them then go to an event where a dead frog twitches with electricity applied to it. Claire meets the infamous Lord Byron, and instantly gets a crush on them.

However, the trio has to flee their lavish new home after one of Shelley’s creditors show up demanding money. They have to find somewhere cheap to live where no one can find them, and a heavily pregnant Mary has to give birth. Their child does not live, which causes even more problems.

It’s almost convenient when Claire announces Lord Byron got her pregnant, and he offers the crew lodging near his estate. They head to his villa, which is by Geneva, and then we learn Byron isn’t actually really interested in Claire. She kind of made up his invitation, but he still lets them stay.

The rain keeps on pouring, so he invents a game to entertain them all: they need to write a ghost story. Mary dreams of the frog being electrocuted, and thus begins the inklings for the story Frankenstein. A message then arrives for Shelley: his wife killed herself by drowning. Claire also has major tension with Byron, who tells her that she’s got some rather wishful thinking about their relationship.

Eventually, the three leave Byron’s home, and Mary begins writing her most famous novel. Shelley doesn’t approve of this, but the publishers refuse to take the novel because it was written by a woman, and no woman could write the subject matter she just did.

She eventually agrees to publish it anonymously, and it’s a massive success. Her husband originally gets all of the credit, but then he reveals it was his wife, bringing them back together romantically.

Her father then decides to help her with her second novel’s publication. In the final scenes, we learn that Shelley married her, but he died young at 29. She never decided to get married again.

Overall Thoughts

While this is a dramatic movie, and I love the actors involved with this work, it just didn’t do it for me. Mary Shelley had such a fascinating life, and we only get the tip of the iceberg with this movie.

Maybe if it didn’t center the relationship as much as it did, I would have enjoyed it more. I would’ve liked it to pick between her life and her work, especially considering the legacy between her and her mother.

All in all, I will be checking out the filmmaker’s other work though: I believe she was the first female filmmaker from Saudi Arabia, which is such a fascinating background for her as well.

Go check this one out if you’re interested—you might find it worth it.

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