The official trailer of the Mary Shelley biopic is here.
Percy Shelley immediately reminds me of a hybrid Oscar Wilde come from the grave AND starring in Penny Dreadful, meshed with the fuck boy who always smirked at you while he leaned like a half moon from dorm room doorway.
Arya says, “That’s Shelley. Beautiful isn’t he?” And all the girls are like “write me a poem, Shelley, write me a poem!” It’s Coachella for girls who scribble on napkins in coffee shops, and believe men in velvet jackets and petticoats do exist. As I wrote this, I imagined why every single boy has Peter Pan syndrome.
Elle Fanning is a perfect collarbone in the preview, although she looks nothing like Mary Shelley. My favorite part of it is definitely when a woman pulls the laundry basket from her hands and says, “Are you really in love with that whoremonger?” I just hope that Percy doesn’t take all the elegance away from Mary in the actual film. Mary Shelley definitely deserves her own film and frankly, Percy Shelley doesn’t really. While I love that idea that the sick mind of Victor Frankenstein in all his hysterical glory is based on Percy, I think Mary Shelley would scoff at this.
I want to see this one in theaters. However, I can’t help but mourn the girl who kept Percy’s calcified heart (or liver — evidence is murky) wrapped in his poems in her side drawer until she buried it with her son. I don’t know if there’s as great a love story as this in our time. Maybe the two storks?
If all else, Mary Shelley would be someone I’d invite to a dinner party, dead or alive. Maybe it’s time I threw a literary dinner party and issued a similar challenge that got Frankenstein penned. The next great novel awaits with Moscow Mules and vegan cheese.
PS. How Percy died is an essay waiting to happen: mysterious, on a boat, middle of the ocean, called the Don Juan. Do we really think the Don Juan could drift without any foul play?
