Mary Shelley's Frankenstein

Francis Ford Coppola's Kenneth Branagh's Mary Shelley's Frankenstein's biggest surprise is that Emma Thompson isn't in it, and Robert De Niro is. The film's boast is that it remains faithful to the original novel (which few people have read) and pointedly ignores previous cinematic interpretations (which most people know).

Victor Frankenstein (Branagh), a medical student in Ingolstadt, creates a living creature from body parts, using the brain of the man who murdered his professor. The being (De Niro), brought to life during a thunderstorm, escapes. Mistreated by the townspeople the creature swears revenge on both his maker and Elizabeth (Helena Bonham-Carter) Victor's adopted sister and wife.

The film has a high body-count, thanks in no small part to a cholera epidemic that sweeps through the town: but there are also a couple of hangings, a gorgeous bit of heart-ripping, and obviously dissections and sewing. Add to this two gory birth scenes and this film appears to be soaked in blood. The notion of birth was important to Shelley, who had had a miscarriage just before writing the novel and whose mother died giving birth to her. Victor's attempts at creating life backfire viciously, since birth is a feminine prerogative, but the film only briefly hints at this. Also the notion of nature-vs-nurture is dealt with too quickly.

The acting is stagey, as you would expected from the likes of Ian HoIm, Richard Briers and Robert Hardy, and John Cleese makes a strange appearence. Branagh directs as though this were a Meatloaf video for MTV, and if he thinks his greasy, sweaty, half naked torso is in some way appealing then I've got news for him.

Review by Stephen Cox
Taken from EUFS Programme 1995-96