Gods and Monsters

I watched this with Will and Joyce.  It has a strange conventional feel although a lot of it isn't, sort of like a melancholy, aged Tim Burton.  I liked Ian McKellan esp when squinting.  Reminded me of my grandfather, such a sad evocation of being at the edge of collapse. 

Brendan Fraser seemed to waver between being a generic hick hunk to a character that hinted at depth and compassion.  He really isn't given all that much to work with so we can't blame him.

Fraser is a frankenstein, Redgrave is Igor, slightly contrived but tongue in cheek (an apt description of Bride of Frankenstein).

Lynn Redgrave is terrific too as the maid.

Ends with a flat attempt at warmth, and you realize just how little the two really connected.  The way the story is framed you're sort of expecting there to be a connection, bt there isn't.  You wonder if it may have been better if the movie concludes in Whale's mind, since so much of what we see in the movie is Whale's splintered perceptions of things (which is depicted rather conventional stream of consciousness imagery).

movie basically claims that two sets of demons haunted Whale in his later life: his war experiences and the frankenstein myth he re-created for film.  If you buy the premise that his thoughts occupied such a narrow range in his life, than it is easy to be impressed by the connections Condon makes.  How in recreating Frankenstein he recreated his lover in the trenches.  In Fraser, he rediscovers him merely in the flesh, not caring for his soul.

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