Watched: Gods and Monsters
Observations:
- Bill Condon wrote and directed this. Bill Condon also directed both parts of The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn. How the mighty have fallen.
- Given that this is based on real-life events (James Whale indeed was the director of Frankenstein and Bride of Frankenstein, and committed suicide in his pool in 1957), and that I knew that he was troubled up until his death, the film’s robbed a little of its sense of tragedy if you know about his life. That said, I was still moved by this.
- Weirdly, and perhaps to his credit, it’s Brendan Fraser that’s the emotional centre of this film; while you can feel the confusion and the anger that McKellen portrays, there’s a sequence shortly before the end that’s incredibly powerful to watch, and it’s Fraser at the centre of it.
- There are a couple of people who feel a little like caricatures, though they’re mostly on the fringes. I can’t help but feel that it was actually deliberate, given that the central trio of characters feel so understated and human that it’s feels like they’re in a bubble.
- The music in this is brilliant - it’s Carter Burwell, who also did the score for In Bruges (and a thousand other films), and he never makes a deliberate play for your heartstrings, giving you time to think instead.
- I think I might end up watching this again in a couple of decades. It has a lot to say about age.