Film – Page 2 – Geeks OUT

May 22, 2019May 20, 2019

TFF 2019 Review: Circus of Books

It was a banner year for LGBT documentaries at the Tribeca Film Festival, but even amidst a crowded field, Circus of Books was a standout. It takes a compellingly quirky story and presents it with grace, humor, and heart.

Barry and Rachel in the basement with porn inventory

Multi-hyphenate artist/director Rachel Mason grew up in a fairly typical Jewish family, with a twist. The business her parents ran for decades was an infamous gay porn shop in West Hollywood, a reality hidden from Rachel and her two brothers until they were in their teens. When Barry, who did special effects for 2001: A Space Odyssey and the original Star Trek series and invented a medical device, was forced out of work by steep insurance costs, his enterprising wife took notice of a newspaper ad from the notorious Larry Flynt. They bought the failing Book Circus, rearranged the sign, and started selling both the controversial Hustler and, later, the gay titles the enterprising Flynt bought out. They also became involved with gay porn production, though Karen ads “we never watched any of these movies.” A certain amount of cognitive dissonance was exercised by Karen—who “wore the pants in the family” according to one former employee—to juggle her conservative Jewish faith and the realities of selling dirty magazines and sex toys. Son Josh agonized over coming out to his parents, and though Karen struggled at first, she and her husband are now active and proud PFLAG members.

Karen at a sex toy convention, making wholesale orders

Mason delivers an intimate, touching, warts-and-all-portrait of her family, especially Karen. The oft cranky matriarch is refreshingly honest and candid throughout, whether stressing over laying off employees or lugging boxes of material out to the dumpster. All of the participants are revealing and frequently funny. Josh recalls how the porn tape he hid away until he had a chance to play it alone turned out to be a Beta. Former employee Alaska Thunderfuck bemoans the fact that he never knew about the store’s cruise-y attic. Even gay film legend Jeff Stryker turns up to share his memories. Mason skillfully weaves together a personal narrative and the larger picture of gay history to make a significant and extremely entertaining documentary.

Netflix will distribute Circus of Books later this year.

May 3, 2019May 2, 2019

TFF 2019 Review: Gay Chorus Deep South

After an emotional performance in Charlotte, chorus members console each other

Early on in David Charles Rodrigues’ exquisite Gay Chorus Deep South, San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus artistic director Dr. Tim Seelig is working in his office. He explains that he keeps himself surrounded by “queens,” Queen Elizabeth and San Francisco legend—and gay hero—Harvey Milk among them. So it’s fitting that the Chorus takes inspiration from Milk, who famously used a lavender pen to sign groundbreaking gay rights legislation into law, in naming their post Trump Lavender Pen Tour. The men travel from Tennessee to Alabama to the Carolinas, looking to spread hope and ignite dialogue. Interestingly enough, assumptions are challenged on both sides. A queer historian complains that the concept reeks of condescension. A Southern Baptist church, meanwhile, welcomes the group with open arms.

Ashlé, the ﬁrst trans individual accepted into a Gay Men’s Chorus, stands their ground in America’s most discriminatory states

Rodrigues shoots the film beautifully, with sweeping overhead shots, intimate access to the performances, and skillful editing. The music is beautiful and accomplished, naturally, and it weaves in and out of sequences seamlessly. A sequence in Selma, where the men hold a triumphant concert and walk across the famed Edmund Pettus Bridge, is particularly striking. We get to know a few of the men particularly well. Seelig reveals his painful history with the Southern Baptist Church and the havoc wreaked on his family when he came out. Jimmy White is fighting cancer and hoping for reconciliation with his staunchly conservative father. Perhaps most compelling is
Ashlé , who struggles to come to terms with their gender identity and finds unwavering acceptance in the men of the Chorus. Thus this film is one of several notable examples of trans stories being told at Tribeca this year; Jeanie Finlay’s beautiful Seahorse and Changing the Game being two others.

Gay Chorus Deep South takes a story that is compelling and of the moment and delivers it with precision and heart.

Gay Chorus Deep South screens this week as part of the Tribeca Film Festival. Visit tribecafilm.com for more.

May 1, 2019April 29, 2019

TFF 2019 Review: Bliss

I always consider it a point of pride when I see a film people walk out of. At House of 1000 Corpses, a couple walked out as the woman loudly declared “let’s get the FUCK out of here!”; another pair fled Suspiria (2018) after a nasty bit of body contortion. So it pleased me that a few folks just couldn’t sit through Bliss, writer/director Joe Begos’ hallucinogenic vampire flick playing the Midnight category at the Tribeca Film Festival. Interestingly, they all left before any of the bloody mayhem even got started; the visceral intensity of the filmmaking seems to be what they couldn’t handle.

Bliss opens with a warning about strobe effects, which seems as much part of the exploitation tradition as a legitimate caveat. After a day glo, rock and roll opening title sequence, we meet Dezzy (Dora Madison), a starving artist struggling to pay the bills while battling a pretty heavy drug problem. She’s got a deadline looming for her latest piece, an appropriately eerie painting of souls writhing in fire, but she can’t seem to find the inspiration to finish it, despite the help of a well-meaning boyfriend Clive (Jeremy Gardner). Maybe that’s because she’s too busy scoring drugs from her pal Hadrian (Graham Skipper) and partying with her girlfriend and sometime lover Courtney (Tru Collins, giving off trashy Lady Gaga vibes) and Courtney’s boyfriend Ronnie (Rhys Wakefield). When Hadrian slips her a coke variant called Bliss, Dezzy’s instantly hooked, but the bad trip it sends her on is compounded by a simultaneous thirst for blood. Dezzy’s life quickly spins out of control—to put it mildly.

Jeremy Gardner as Clive, Tru Collins as Courtney,and Rhys Wakefield as Ronnie

Bliss is an impressively crafted movie, with stunning cinematography and lighting and a hard driving metal soundtrack. Madison is remarkable as Dezzy, a character that could easily come off as selfish and obnoxious, but who is vividly real and funny in the actress’ capable hands. The screenplay is smart and pretty damn funny, and the intensity of the filmmaking makes Bliss a movie you experience more than watch. There’s also outstanding use of locations—the various bars, Dezzy’s apartment, and Hadrian’s house are all vividly real places. Where Bliss might be polarizing is with regards to the copious drug use and the extremely intense, bloody violence (thought to be fair, isn’t that exactly what a vampire movie should have in spades?). The finale is so gruesomely over the top that I wasn’t quite sure how I felt about it. But this movie really goes for it, and Begos and his crew are undeniably talented. However you feel about Bliss, you won’t soon forget it.

Bliss screens Wednesday at 9:45 as part of the Tribeca Film Festival. Visit tribecafilm.com for more info.

April 30, 2019April 29, 2019

TFF 2019 Review: You Don’t Nomi

For camp movie fans, the existence of a documentary about the Showgirls cult is both remarkable and unsurprising. It’s unlikely subject matter in some ways, but if you saw Paul Verhoeven’s notorious 1995 flop for the first time with a date who did all the dance moves while watching—and then, later, with an adoring crowd led by the inimitable Hedda Lettuce—it’s no wonder someone got a whole ninety minutes out of this. It’s a testament to writer/director Jeffrey McHale and his exceedingly witty, literate commentators that You Don’t Nomi exceeds expectations—it’s not just diverting but intensely imaginative and thoughtful, and it becomes a film not just about Showgirls but about movies and our love for them, too.

Gina Gershon (Cristal) and Berkley compare nails

Showgirls arrived twenty four years ago amidst a swirl of controversy: it was the first ever mainstream NC-17 movie, and it starred Saved by the Bell good girl Elizabeth Berkley in a potentially star making role as stripper Nomi Malone. Nomi is running from a mysterious past—when friend Molly asks her where she’s from, she memorably blurts “DIFFERENT PLACES!!!!”—and is seeking stardom in the tawdry world of Las Vegas. Her big break comes via Cristal Connors (a delightful, scenery chewing Gina Gershon), the star of the revue Goddess, and her entertainment director boyfriend Zack (heartthrob Kyle MacLachlan), who’s willing to help Nomi replace Cristal in the lead in exchange for some spastic swimming pool action. Before you can say All About Eve, Nomi’s headlining at the Stardust, but at what price?

McHale forgoes “talking head” interviews in favor of a continuous montage approach. He deftly weaves together footage from Showgirls as well as Verhoeven’s other films, like Robocop and Basic Instinct, and other notable film favorites like Mommie Dearest. All the while, we hear ruminations from an engaging cast of characters: Adam Nayman, film writer and author of It Doesn’t Suck: Showgirls; April Kidwell, a theater performer who played Nomi in the Off-Broadway Showgirls musical (pictured above) and who’s touring this summer with a new prequel show, I, Nomi; and Jeffery Conway, a poet who wrote a book of sestinas (!) based on the film. They and others offer their perspectives on Showgirls: for some, it’s an endlessly watchable piece of trash; for others, it’s a surprisingly underrated satire that brilliantly skewers cultural attitudes towards sex, entertainment, and other issues. Kidwell used her roles as Berkley’s caffeine pill addicted Jessie Spano (in Saved by the Bell: The Musical) and Nomi to overcome her PTSD following a rape; while some deride the scene in which Nomi avenges Molly’s rape, for Kidwell, it was an especially empowering and resonant moment. Another commentator points out that Nomi, in seeking success in the big city, freely using her sexuality, and building her own chosen family, is reflective of many queer people’s experience (to say nothing of the unsubtle lesbian “subtext” that pervades her interplay with Cristal).

Star Berkley and director Paul Verhoeven

The movie also examines why Berkeley became the scapegoat, in many ways, for the movie’s box office and critical failure. While You Don’t Nomi’s participants revel in her outlandish performance, they also take pains to demonstrate that Verhoeven directed her specifically to behave in an outsize way. They also hint at the sexism that played a part in her torpedoed career: a clip shows Gene Siskel bluntly criticizing her appearance, and Verhoeven’s misogyny is detailed at length. When Berkley is shown introducing a packed Hollywood screening of the movie in 2015—and receiving a standing ovation—her emotion is palpable.

You Don’t Nomi is a must see for fans of Showgirls, but more broadly, this is a movie about the profound ways film can impact and inspire the lives of audiences, particularly queer moviegoers.

You Don’t Nomi screens Tuesday at 8:30 as part of the Tribeca Film Festival. Visit tribecafilm.com for more.

April 25, 2019April 25, 2019

Tribeca Film Festival Preview

The Tribeca Film Festival returns this week for its eighteenth edition. Always inclusive, this year’s fest (running now through May 5) boasts films largely directed by women (40%), people of color (29%), and/or LGBTQIA folks (13%). Here are some titles to look out for.

LGBT

Queer-themed works this year include the documentary Seahorse, about a trans man who carries a baby to term; Gay Chorus Deep South, recounting the San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus’ post-Trump tour; N.O.W. Digital Showcase, featuring the hilarious quasi-musical “Sweater,” by local filmmaker Nick Borenstein, and the intriguing sexual awakening tale Kiss of the Rabbit God; and the first Tribeca Pride Day (May 4), boasting talks with legendary ACT UP founder and playwright Larry Kramer, Neil Patrick Harris, trailblazing non-binary actor Asia Kate Dillon (Billions, John Wick 3: Parabellum), Pose creator Steve Canals and costar Angelica Ross, and the premiere of the Wigstock documentary Wig.

MIDNIGHT & MORE

The always reliable Midnights category includes Come to Daddy, a twisted family horror show starring Elijah Wood; the buzzy, balls-to-the-wall vampire flick Bliss; and You Don’t Nomi, a documentary about the phenomenon that is Showgirls. Charlie Says reunites American Psycho writer Guinevere Turner (Go Fish) and director Mary Harron in a look at the troubled disciples of Charles Manson (Matt Smith). There will also be a free, family friendly Star Wars: A New Hope screening on the morning of May the Fourth.

TELEVISION

Oscar winner Rami Malek and Christian Slater appear live to give a Farewell to Mr. Robot; Pilot Season includes Lady Liberty, starring Shea Miller as a young queer comedian; Seth Rogen premieres his new comics adaptation The Boys; and Yeardley “Lisa” Smith leads a Simpsons thirtieth anniversary panel with Matt Groening, James L. Brooks, Harry Shearer, and more.

TALKS

Geeks OUT readers will be interested in a number of the Talks during Tribeca: Queen Latifah and director Dee Rees will discuss “gender and racial equality behind the camera”; Guillermo del Toro appears in conversation with Alec Baldwin; Questlove and filmmaker Boots Riley compare notes; and Michael J. Fox chats with pal Denis Leary.

To learn more about Tribeca Film Festival, visit tribecafilm.com. Watch this space for more coverage.

April 8, 2019April 9, 2019

Review: Pet Sematary

Pet Sematary is probably Stephen King’s most notorious novel, famed for its dark and disturbing subject matter—especially child death— and its power to scare. The 1989 film, scripted by King and directed by Mary Lambert, was fairly trashy but undeniably effective. Do we need another one?

Probably not, although King’s renewed popularity explains why a studio would go ahead with one. The new version, directed by Kevin Kolsch and Dennis Widmyer (who made the unnerving, pitch black Hollywood satire Starry Eyes), is intriguing both for that duo and for the intriguing choice to make 10 year old Ellie (an impressive Jete Laurence) the kid who dies rather than toddler Gage. The setup is the same: the Creed family moves from Boston to rural Maine, with a busy highway looming just off their property. Kindly old neighbor Jud (John Lithgow) befriends the clan, and when Ellie’s beloved cat gets run over, he shows dad Louis (Jason Clarke) a secret burial ground with the power to bring it back to life. “Church” (played by five different cats) comes back wrong, and yet that isn’t enough to stop Louis from bringing Ellie there when tragedy strikes. Meanwhile, mom Rachel (Amy Seimetz) is haunted by the memories of her dreaded, bedridden sister—a trauma soon weaponized against her.

Pet Sematary has a solid cast. Clarke is dependable as always, and acts rings around the original’s hunky but dull Dale Midkiff. Seimetz is equally strong as Rachel, but the movie belongs to Laurence. The preternaturally talented actress is equally vivid as the sweet, precocious “good” daughter and the sinister abomination she comes back as (the effect is aided by some outstanding makeup and a perfectly twisted use of “Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairies”). The biggest disappointment here, oddly, is Lithgow. He’s solid, but his Jud just can’t hold a candle to the lovable, folksy, and compellingly haunted man Fred Gwynne played in the 1989 movie.

The script may be partially to blame. Matt Greenberg and Jeff Buhler make plenty of good contributions—the masked funeral procession that opens the picture, a twisted set piece involving a dumb waiter, and the switch to Ellie among them. But they skimp on characterization. In the novel, Louis remarks that Jud should have been his father, but that bond doesn’t quite come off here. The family shares some thoughtful scenes, like their debate over how to explain death to their daughter; but the aftermath of Ellie’s death is glossed over far too quickly. We know that a resurrection is coming, of course—even those unfamiliar with the source material will be able to see the writing on the wall when Church transforms from cuddly to malevolent. But the overwhelming experience of grief is what fuels that development, and that needs to be conveyed in more detail. The other sticking point for me is the ending. I won’t get into detail for obvious reasons, but I had difficulty reconciling myself with how thoroughly it deviates from the novel.

Still, Pet Sematary has much to recommend it: vivid visuals (in spite of some dodgy CGI); unforgettable performances from Laurence and the cats (including breakout viral star Tonic as the “good” Church); an appropriately sweeping score by legendary composer Christopher Young (Hellraiser, A Nightmare on Elm Street 2); and some fun Easter eggs for fans. But perhaps Pet Sematary should have stayed buried.

March 30, 2019March 29, 2019

Us – Review

Lupita Nyong’o, Evan Alex, Shahadi Wright Joseph, and Winston Duke in Us

Us opened last weekend to a mammoth $70.2 million, becoming the highest opening original horror movie and biggest ever opening for a film with a black female lead. What’s more, Us, Jordan Peele’s follow-up to his Oscar winning instant classic Get Out, is just plain awesome. It’s a fun, immersive, thoughtful spectacular that just happens to center on an African American family. It’s as if Jordan Peele is shrugging, saying, “I make outstanding horror films with black leads, NBD” while his doppelganger is brandishing a pair of golden scissors and shrieking “it’s a very big deal.”

Us opens with a bizarre opening title sequence—Get Out composer Michael Abels provides an even better score here—that won’t make any sense until much later in the narrative. Then there’s an excellent 1986 set sequence on the Santa Cruz boardwalk, wherein a little girl wanders away from her squabbling parents and encounters her mirror image in a spooky funhouse. Flash forward to the present: the Wilsons are a middle class family headed to their vacation house. Gabe (Winston Duke) is an endearingly goofy dad. Jason (Evan Alex) is an oddball kid with an affinity for Halloween masks and magic tricks. Sister Zora (Shahadi Wright Joseph) is a high school running star alternately amused and annoyed by most of her family, aka every teenage girl ever. Adelaide (Lupita Nyong’o, transcendent) is a fiercely protective mother who anchors the clan, but something’s bothering her. That was her in the funhouse, and she’s intensely triggered by this return. It doesn’t spoil anything to say that her doppelganger soon arrives with copies of the entire family in tow; mayhem ensues. Anyone who gives away more than that deserves to dine on raw rabbit.

The construction of Us is exquisite. Portents of doom and symbolism abound, from the Biblical quote to the mirror imagery everywhere you look. The Wilsons’ friends, the Tylers, are a parallel family. Two parents, two kids: white/black, rich/not so rich, happy/deeply dysfunctional. (As boozy mom Kitty, Elisabeth Moss gets to show off her acting chops—though no one can hold a candle to Lupita here.) There are clues and winks saturating the movie, but Peele isn’t showing off. He’s just inviting you to immerse yourself in his world. He beckons the audience into his nightmare kingdom as surely as the characters are drawn into that funhouse. At the risk of belaboring a point, Us truly is a funhouse; while Get Out was deadly serious, this movie is a thrill ride, leavened with humor and as enjoyable as it is creepy.

For the past week, I’ve been debating this movie with friends. Does the mythology make sense? Are there plot holes? Is it overrated, poorly written, etc., etc.? I’ve engaged with the conversations—it’s the kind of movie you should see with friends, and plan to talk about over coffee or cocktails immediately afterward. But I remain unshaken in my conviction that this is an extremely well made, imaginative, and entertaining film that is destined to become a classic. Peele displays such complete command of his craft, from script to camera to lighting to the inspired choice of songs: Janelle Monae and N.W.A. are among the standouts. All of the performers turn in excellent work. Everything you’ve heard about Nyong’o is true. She is utterly remarkable as Adelaide and her scissors-loving “Tethered” counterpart, Red. If there was any justice in the world, she would be nominated for an Oscar for this movie, but the Academy will probably snub her. No matter. She makes this movie, aptly supported by the entire cast. Duke is endearing and truly outstanding in his own right. He’s also one of the sexiest bears I’ve seen onscreen in a long while. (Add unconventional body types to the Hollywood standards this movie casually upends.) He and the kids are adept at vividly portraying their sinister “shadows,” too.

We already knew Jordan Peele was one to watch. This terrific movie only serves to confirm it, and as a horror fan, I’m thrilled to have a new master to follow—especially one slicing through barriers.

July 31, 2018July 30, 2018

Review: Fags in the Fast Lane

With a title like Fags in the Fast Lane, you expect a certain type of movie: politically incorrect. Exploitation throwback. Very, very silly. Australian production company Zombie Zoo Productions delivers on all of these counts, though my take is that co-writer/director Josh “Sinbad” Collins’s film is ultimately so good-natured, it’s unlikely to offend anyone. I once read a review that described the “candy-colored, amiably slapdash” Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me, and that review popped into my head while watching Fags in the Fast Lane, with its fanciful costumes, arch performances, and hilarious miniatures, which make no attempt at realism whatsoever. (A dinosaur scene is about as convincing as the time I filmed my Jurassic World toys for YouTube.)

What semblance there is of a plot involves dynamic duo Sir Beauregard (Chris Asimos) and Reginald Lumpton III (Matt Jones) and their attempt to track down the burlesque gang (played by performance troupe the GoGo Goddesses) who stole precious jewels from Beau’s mom Kitten (these names!). Kitten is played, naturally, by Kitten Navidad, who earned her vintage sexploitation bonafides as the star of Russ Myers’ infamous Faster Pussycat! Kill! Kill! Here, she’s a Madame running a GILF bordello. When she’s not having hilariously energetic sex with the villainous Chief (Pugsley Buzzard), she’s wailing about her stolen jewels. Beau, who always calls her “mama” because of course he does, enlists the Chief’s twink son Squirt (Oliver Bell) and Salome (Sacha Cuhar) to take on the gang’s fearsome leader, Wanda the Giantess (Aimee Nichols). Wanda’s voice is intensely, hilariously deep, and she is in possession of something even more precious than jewels: the powerful “Golden Cock”!

Really, this is all an excuse for a series of loosely connected skits, action sequences, and musical numbers. Highlights include a cheeky ballad sung by Hijra (Arish A. Khan) when he loses his “precious Golden Cock” and a stop motion animated sequence in which Squirt is “threatened” by all manner of phallic swamp creatures. As a cis gay man, I wasn’t personally offended by any of this nonsense, although a baseball bat is shoved pretty severely up a character’s butt (the “special effects” are too low grade for it to be all that gross) and Salome’s gender bending character leads to some offensive terminology: a “she-male worshipping cult” that is one of the approximately thirty-five brief subplots. Salome herself is sexy and ass-kicking, in any case.

Interestingly, director Collins is straight. According to the entertaining press notes, he and his wife Barbara “have created a variety of retro parties, theme bars, and happenings around the globe.” With Fags in the Fast Lane, they give us queer characters to root for and a memorable slice of ridiculous fun.

Fags in the Fast Lane is available on DVD

June 28, 2018June 27, 2018

Review: Picnic at Hanging Rock

This twisty mystery could be your next obsession. Amazon’s miniseries Picnic at Hanging Rock is an adaptation of the Joan Lindsay novel (previously adapted into what has become a cult film directed by Peter Weir) about the mysterious disappearance of a group of girls at an Australian finishing school circa Valentine’s Day 1900. Based on the premiere episode screened at the Tribeca Film Festival, the series will be way more complex than even that tantalizing description suggests.

Fan fave Natalie Dormer (Game of Thrones) stars as Mrs. Appleyard, the enigmatic (to say the least) headmistress of the boarding school, who rules with an iron fist. From the very first scene, in which she poses as a widow scouting a potential home for the school (actually played by multiple houses, all ornate and gorgeous) and “converses” with her dead husband, we know there’s much more to her than meets the eye. The same can be said for the students, including rising star Samara Weaving (The Babysitter, Mayhem) as Irma, the girl all the boys want, and Inez Curro as pretween Sara, who’s wound up at the school following some mysterious trauma at home. By the time the girls embark on the all-important Valentine’s Day picnic, there’s enough intrigue for a season’s worth of soap opera afoot. Irma and her clique excuse themselves for a mountaintop excursion, which they’ve obviously planned ahead of time—but why? Just how close are these girls, anyway? The shit suddenly hits the fan, seemingly due to some supernatural force, and the hour ends on a cliffhanger.

Picnic at Hanging Rock is one of the weirdest things I’ve seen in a long time– and it’s glorious. Garry Phillips’s cinematography is exquisite; the costumes are colorful and eye-popping; the mostly female cast is superb across the board. Dormer in particular is in fine form, clearly relishing this enigmatic role. At the festival panel, she joked that she was dead set against “another corset job” but was persuaded by a chat with the director, and watching her sink her teeth into this part, it’s easy to see why! The eerie, hallucinatory effect of the program is enhanced by unnerving sound design and a great score by Cezary Skubiszewski. I am very much looking forward to bingeing this series, and based on the pilot, it could definitely catch on with a cult audience.

June 28, 2018June 27, 2018

Review: Mary Shelley

Mary Shelley, my favorite feature from this year’s Tribeca Film Festival (and now available to stream), casts an electrifying Elle Fanning as the woman who invented science fiction with the classic novel Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus. Mary’s been portrayed on screen before, by the likes of Elsa Lanchester (who was both creator and creation in Bride of Frankenstein) and Natasha Richardson (in Ken Russell’s baroque and bizarre Gothic), but never before with any sense of realism, and certainly not in so feminist a manner as this movie.

Which isn’t to say that Mary Shelley—which, ahem, was directed by Saudi Arabia’s first female director, Haifaa Al-Mansour—is without style. It’s a gorgeously shot, meticulously designed work that dramatizes its real world characters with immediacy and excitement. Still reeling from the death of her mother, and stymied by the tyrannical presence of her stepmother, Mary is a misfit who buries her nose in horrific, “unsavory” books and has no one to rely on apart from her sister Claire (Bel Powley). That is, until she meets the beguiling poet Percy Shelley (Douglas Booth), her father’s literary apprentice, and the two embark on a forbidden romance. Eventually the lovers run away together, taking along Claire, but happiness proves elusive for the trio. The mercurial, philandering Percy causes Mary no small amount of pain, and Claire’s affair with the enigmatic Lord Byron (scene-stealing Tom Sturridge) causes her equal misery. Through it all, Mary manages to persevere and put pen to paper for the masterpiece that is Frankenstein—even if she has to convince sexist publishers to take a chance on such a ghastly work for a female author. The inspiration for this monstrous tale is rendered in gripping cinematic fashion, by a “Phantasmagoria” stage show the characters witness and an eerie nightmare Mary has while staying at Byron’s Swiss villa.

Mary Shelley makes many such flourishes, and takes liberties with the truth—but it works, and the effect is beautiful. The poetic dialogue sounds like it belongs in an exceptionally witty play; it’s delivered by a great cast led by the excellent Fanning. Booth is appropriately beautiful and narcissistic as Percy, while Powley brings levels to the tortured Claire. Sturridge, as Byron, makes quite the impression on characters and audience when he greets Percy with a kiss on the lips; sadly, his bisexuality is left largely unexplored, save for a vague allusion later on. It’s forgivable considering how much material the writers (Emma Jensen and Al-Mansour) had to whittle down. There’s also a gorgeous score by actress/composer Amelia Warner.

Mary Shelley is a fast-moving, fanciful, yet resonant treatment of the life and talent of the famous author. It reveals a uniquely female perspective on love, loss, and sisterhood, and sheds a very modern light on the pitfalls of navigating a sexist world. Go see it.