I have to say I love Elle Fanning. She is amazing but there were things about this movie I did not like. Why is there a fascination with all these writers and the need to make movies based on their lives? Just a little tip, no one wants to see boring scenes nor hear people talk about stuff we just don't care about or have no idea what they are saying. I cant stress this enough. We definitely want to see Elle in more movies especially period pieces but please spare us the writer biography rubbish.

Frankenstein is one of the greatest novels ever written. It was brilliantly conceived and executed and significantly ahead of its time. The Hollywood-ization of this novel is usually lacking all merit of the work, missing the novel's primary question: who was the greater monster-- the creature or the doctor? This movie takes great liberties in dramatizing the life of the author prior to her writing the book. It does so fairly well-- to the point of discomfort in how women were viewed and treated in those intellectually stimulating but socially dark times. The climate of England and surrounding areas was one of bigotry, inequality and extreme prejudice. This film presents the despair of such times quite well, drawing the viewer into the potential feelings of the author when writing the book. That is the weakness of the film: it is largely conjecture. As a work of fiction it does reasonably well. Lovers of gothic romance may be entranced (if unsettled) by the presentation and emotional darkness of the film. For what the writers and directors were attempting, they achieved to an extent. However the storytelling is somewhat interrupted and set back by unwarranted flashbacks and other film gimmicks that detracted from the reality of the story. One such gimmick is nowhere more obvious than at the very end of the film where they present a spoken line quite important to the movie-- AFTER text blurbs discussing the lives of the main characters. Such was poorly done and interrupted the flow of the movie right at the end-- in my opinion an unforgivable sin in movie making. (I might have given this another star were it not for that significant flaw in directing.) As to the accuracy, that is likely irrelevant. This is a dramatization, and that's the simple truth of it. Whether the story is accurate or not is secondary to achieving its purpose. It tells the intended story decently-- just not well enough to draw in the viewer and make itself believable. It focused too greatly on inconsequential things of no matter to the story, and too little on issues of potential greatness. As such it was worth watching, but viewers might not expect storytelling anywhere near the expertise of the original novel. To the viewer who wrote of hating the novel and enjoying the Hollywood monster movies much more-- everyone has personal opinions, but it is a sad situation when a novel the quality and impact of Frankenstein is not understood and appreciated, more so when publicly boasted.

It is not because someone wrote a famous book that his or her life is interesting, or deserving a film. In the case of Mary Shelley, her book Frankenstein is really boring. Film adaptations of the story are usually much more interesting and vibrant than the original. She became famous because of it, but her fame in my opinion is undeserving. And this film is as boring or more than her book. Too much talk, too little drama or action or anything interesting. I guess that the life of her gardener, butcher, mailman whoever would be as interesting or more than hers. I guess that not even hard core feminists can sit through "Mary Shelley". It is coma inducing. I would recommend "Mary Shelley" only for those who are sleep deprived and in need of a non-addictive soporific

I know there are some erudite comments about the accuracy of the story, but as this is just a story and does not claim to be an autobiographical account of Mary Shelley's life, I feel some inaccuracies matter less. The key thing for me is that the story was so excellently written using a diluted language of the day so as to be clearly understandable, and so brilliantly directed that there was never a dull or irrelevant moment and you felt encapsulated in the story the entire time, and the acting was so sublime so as to engage me wholly and perfectly both in the story and the execution of the story by the performers. Elle Fanning has acted such a wide breadth of roles now that she must be viewed as one of Hollywoods finest. I have never been left wanting by any of her films and she always makes me totally believe in her character. For her to slip easily between the mind bending scenes of How to Talk to Girls at Parties and into a thoughtful and intense role such as Mary Shelley shows she has no fear of any role but every skill needed for them all. My review is based on the writing, direction and acting an thoroughly deserves this almost perfect score.

If you're looking for high-tech thrills and mindless entertainment with a comic book plot, then this movie is not for you. But if you have the patience and empathy to join a young woman in the discovery and pursuit of her passions; and the joys, hardships and bitter disillusionments that led to her producing a timeless masterpiece, then your 2 hours will be well spent! Haifaa Al-Mansour deserves huge credit for giving 21st-century moviegoers an in-depth look into the life of a self-motivated, independent-minded, extremely creative girl-woman in male-dominated 18th-century Europe; and the pain and sacrifices endured, observed, analyzed and interpreted to produce her masterpiece Frankenstein. Two hours is not much time to portray such a life, but with the brilliant cast of Elle Fanning, Douglas Booth et al, Al-Monsour does the original creative genius * heartbroken romantic feminist sweet and bitter justice!

I had only previously read excerpts from Mary Shelley's Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus, but it's hard to deny the endearing legacy the novel had in literature and even in cinema. I was pretty hyped to see this because it seemed intriguing and also because it was clearly Elle Fanning appreciation weekend. After making the assumption that most of the events in the film are fairly accurate I must admit that I enjoyed this film. The film follows the early life of Mary Shelley and her first love to Percy Shelley. Percy was a bit of a philanderer but Mary persevered because she loved him. She experiences heartbreak and loss through her early years but then comes upon circumstances where she is able to write her own novel in a competition. Of course, this novel comes to be known as Frankenstein. However, its tough for Mary to get the credit she deserves for it because it was not common for women at the time to be known for their writing. Also, her husband was already an established writer so people assumed it was his story. I'm a fan of both of the Fanning sisters but I think Elle is the better actress. After seeing her in this and How to Talk to Girls at Parties, I can see her dedication and how committed she is to a role. She is a strong point as to why this film is enjoyable. I also liked the set and costume design was very accurate for period detail. Technically, the film looks the part so its nice to stare at. I haven't seen Haifaa al-Mansour's previous effort but feel inclined to check it out since I enjoyed this biopic enough. I'd say the main weakness of the film is its lack of focus on Frankenstein. The film is primarily focused on Shelley's love life and then kind of kicks into focusing on her writing efforts but even so the film does not really illustrate the importance of the work or the profound effect it has on people. They cover the inspiration for the work but I don't think its nearly enough. Overall, a pretty solid film with flaws but one thats heralded by a strong lead performance. 7/10

The main goal of Mary Shelley was to show everything that the heroine went through before writing Frankenstein. In my opinion, it failed. The movie was listing the events in her life, but not in a way that would make you care about any of it. Moreover, the scene where Mary writes her novel and the movie constantly cuts to flashbacks was corny and kind of insulting. This was such a great potential of showing how artist and their worldview is influenced by the course of their life, but ended up being shallow and very blatant. Some parts, Mary's interest in science for example, felt like writers were going through checkpoints, adding things just because they need to be there for the movie to make sense. This movie is very similar to The Imitation Game. I loved that movie, but I felt that the source material was so interesting that the Oscar for the best Adapted Screenplay was undeserved. This movie proved me wrong. Anything can be boring if you are uninspired enough, apparently.

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source: Mary Shelley