Mary Shelley * * *

         Mary Shelley, is a disappointing outcome as director Haiffa Al-Mansour and writer Emma Jensen obviously have a lot of love and respect for the subject, yet it remains a bit of a bore.  There are a few strong scenes but not many of them. Generally I felt it was ticking the boxes to ensure that the major characters and incidents in Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley's life were all accounted for; it was rather like a diligent essay.

 Byron: Bet you can't write like me.
Mary: Bring it on, ya fop!

       Mary Shelley is well known as the author of Frankenstein.  She is also known as the lover, and later the wife, of the poet Percy Shelley, and for also hanging out with Lord Byron.  It was during a stay with Lord Byron that she wrote the first draft of Frankenstein.
          When I look at the film everything is accounted for: The loss of her child and the aching desire to bring her back to life, the friendship with Byron's doctor, John Polidori, the difficult relationship with her father, the eternal but strained friendship with her half-sister, Claire.
         It looks good too.  The period is convincingly portrayed.  Elle Fanning is quite well cast as Mary Shelley, in that Fanning is a young actress, and Mary was indeed young (sixteen) when she ran away with Percy Shelley.
           But it is rather pedestrian and there are some dreadfully clunky (maybe unnecessary) scenes; the final scene being the worst of all of them which is a very unfortunate note for it to conclude on.