Mary Shelley

This film tells the story of Mary, the daughter of two literary stars. The story concentrates on her life, and the circumstances which inspired her famous story "Frankenstein".

The story is very good because it captures emotions wonderfully. From love, jealousy, loneliness, disappointment, arrogance and despair, emotions are skilfully displayed on screen. I find the story captivating, and I am drawn to the characters' less than fortunate world.

A wonderfully adapted script & casted perfectly for Elle Fanning & Bel Powley. The movie does great justice & entertains you with a wonderful script with flowing poetry and proper English as spoken in the years past. The motivation, inspiration of ones passion, desires and disappointment's allowing Mary to pen her words to a great story are told and performed exquisitely by Elle Fanning who is truly becoming an incredible actress. So if you want a good movie for an adult date night, here you go. Enjoy!

Overly romanticised and clean version with far too much of a modern interpretation. I could telate to it if I was a starry eyed innocent teenager.

This film deserves more than 6.3 on IMDB. Douglas Booth and Fanning present two people who the audience may perhaps have preconceptions of their characters- without feeding to their expectations which results in two genuine characters both with flaws but both human as apposed to the figures history created out of them.

Mary Shelley: This film is a tad confused as it tries to fit so much into a 2 hour running time. There is the romance between Percy Shelley (Douglas Booth) and Mary Wollstonecraft (Elle Fanning); her freethinking father William Godwin (Stephen Dillane); her deceased mother Mary Wollstonecraft the author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman; the affair between Mary's stepsister Claire Clairmont (Bel Powley) and Lord Byron (Tom Sturridge); then there is the tale of the Swiss villa where the Frankenstein story was conceived. Mary even has a nasty stepmother (Joanne Froggatt).

Booth and Fanning both look exceedingly pretty and it's certainly lust if not love at first sight but somehow there are no real sparks in the relationship. Shelley is a cad who has deserted his wife and child and now hopes to have free love with Mary and more on the side. The real fire rages between Powley and Sturridge even if his Byron portrayal is somewhat reminiscent of Jason Isaacs plying Zhukov. The Swiss scenes where Frankenstein was thought up are surprisingly low key with Polidori (Ben Hardy) providing the main interest.

This might have worked better as a six hour TV mini-series. 6/10.