It\u2019s not hard to see why Belfast<\/em> has won over the For Your Consideration crowd. It\u2019s a perfectly pleasant portrait of family, the nostalgia of childhood, and its inherent strife, a movie practically brewed in a cauldron to be as amiable as possible. Stylistically, there\u2019s not much that separates Belfast<\/em> from Branagh\u2019s Marvel or Disney efforts. It\u2019s a far cry from his early days and the more esoteric choices he made before the backlash hit. Indeed, it was his weirdest and most daring film that kickstarted it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Mary Shelley\u2019s Frankenstein<\/em> is a film that exists almost exclusively because of the success of Bram Stoker\u2019s Dracula<\/em>, the lascivious vampiric drama that gave Francis Ford Coppola a much-needed box office hit and helped to revive speculative cinema for the \u201990s. The film briefly inspired a kind of prestige legitimacy of the horror genre, leading to \u201cserious\u201d directors taking on alternate visions of classic stories, from Stephen Frears\u2019s dreary reimagining of the Jekyll and Hyde story with Mary Reilly<\/em>, to Wolf<\/em>, Mike Nichols\u2019s fascinating interpretation of the wolfman lore as a story of primal masculinity and corporate subterfuge. Branagh\u2019s addition to this fad, produced by Coppola, is the one that comes the closest to capturing the tone and intent of its source material. It\u2019s also, it must be said, sort of a disaster.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Branagh himself plays Dr. Frankenstein as an obsessive egomaniac with the aesthetic of an \u201880s romance novel hero, complete with gratuitous oiled-up abs shots, which is patently ridiculous but also in line with Shelley\u2019s villain. Critics called out the film for feeling like more of a vanity shoot than usual for Branagh, a man used to directing himself as the lead, but at least this performance makes sense in the harried context Branagh created for himself. Shelley\u2019s novel is often deeply contemplative, a philosophical tract on the nature of life and the guilt of the creator. On-screen, it often resembles an action film. The camera simply never stops moving, constantly spiralling around the actors, regardless of whether or not they\u2019re doing anything of narrative importance. While it seems fitting for the feverish intensity of Shelley\u2019s radical ideas, it soon wears thin. It often feels like Branagh doesn\u2019t think there\u2019s enough drama in the pioneering text of science-fiction, so he has to amp up the action.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It is this conflicting approach to the novel that makes Mary Shelley\u2019s Frankenstein<\/em> such a jarring watch. Branagh\u2019s understanding of classical texts can be seen in sparks throughout the film. The zealotry of Frankenstein\u2019s work has never felt as full-throated in other adaptations as it does here. The gaps in the text that Branagh fills in, particularly the more grotesque mechanics of how the creature comes to life (via lots of amniotic fluid), feel perfectly in tune with the book. Yet the overreliance on melodrama, which seems better suited to Dracula\u2019s realm, dilutes the near-elegiac quality of the source material. The music is loud, the camera refuses to stay still, and there\u2019s just so much screaming. The film’s original screenwriter Frank Darabont, who later disavowed it, said, “Shelley’s book is not operatic, it whispers at you a lot.” Branagh’s movie yells, fully convinced that subtext is for cowards.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It only gets messier when Branagh relies on his worst impulses, including starry casting that can veer between unexpected yet appropriate to beyond distracting. Robert De Niro gives one of his most confusing performances as the monster, slathered under make-up yet all too recognizable as the icon that he is. The pathos of the creature struggles to shine past the viewer\u2019s bafflement at seeing Travis Bickle lumber around awkwardly. Helena Bonham Carter fares better as Frankenstein\u2019s love, who faces a terrible fate. <\/p>\n\n\n\n For all of the film\u2019s frantic failures, it remains a fascinating and frequently enjoyable watch. Branagh would make some comparably weird creative decisions after Mary Shelley\u2019s Frankenstein<\/em>, such as his sharp-tongued, chest-beating remake of Sleuth<\/em>, but nothing would match this movie for sheer neck-breaking passion. As misguided as it frequently is, it\u2019s a film with nerve, something that is sorely lacking in Branagh\u2019s recent run of respectably sturdy studio efforts that stridently follow age-old formulas. Imagine the alternate future where Mary Shelley\u2019s Frankenstein<\/em> was a success and Branagh took the route of Ken Russell over Ron Howard. “Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein” is streaming on HBO Max <\/a>and available for digital rental or purchase via the usual platforms<\/a>.<\/em> It will be released on 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray<\/a> on March 29 from Arrow Video. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/frankenstein2-1024x576.jpg\")
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