Copyright © 1998 The Seattle Times Company
Arts & Entertainment : Friday, November 20, 1998
Movie review: 'Gods and Monsters' one of the year's best
by John Hartl
Seattle Times movie reviewer**** "Gods and Monsters,'' with Ian McKellen, Brendan Fraser, Lynn Redgrave, David Dukes, Lolita Davidovich. Directed and written by Bill Condon, based on Christopher Bram's novel, "Father of Frankenstein.'' 105 minutes. Egyptian. No rating; includes nudity, profanity. Much as I enjoyed Christopher Bram's 1995 novel, "Father of Frankenstein," I think Bill Condon's film version surpasses it in almost every way that counts.
The book was an entertaining speculation about what might have been the cause of a retired movie director's apparent suicide in 1957. The film, called "Gods and Monsters," transcends Bram's narrow focus and adds an epilogue that is surely one of the most affecting moments in the history of movies about movies.
It starts modestly, as a rather in-jokey comedy about Hollywood in the 1950s, then gradually expands to encompass half a century of memories of war, fame, love and artistic breakthroughs in a fledgling art/industry - all of them draining away as "Frankenstein's" director, James Whale, faces physical and mental disintegration that he ultimately finds intolerable.
It sounds depressing, but Ian McKellen's performance as Whale, who declares at one point that "making movies is the most wonderful thing in the world," is filled with wit and joy. Just as fine are Brendan Fraser as Clayton Boone, an insecure ex-Marine who becomes Whale's gardener and confidant, and Lynn Redgrave, as his grimacing, crotchety Hungarian housekeeper, Hanna.
Fictional they may be, but these two are real characters, complete with contradictions and misgivings that ring true. Hanna is devoted to Whale, but she's convinced he's going to hell for his homosexuality, and she's not a fan of his work (in her fractured English, Hanna tells Whale that his movies are "not my teacup"). Boone is hunky, heterosexual and initially wary of Whale's attraction to him, but the two gradually discover they have much in common.
When Whale invites Boone to a party at the home of a rival gay director, George Cukor (Martin Ferrero), it's clear that Whale is in a mischief-making mood, while Boone is deeply curious about the lifestyles of the Hollywood rich and famous.
The party includes a reunion with Whale's "monsters" from "The Bride of Frankenstein," Boris Karloff (played by Jack Betts) and Elsa Lanchester (Rosalind Ayres), which visually reinforces the similarities between what Whale calls Boone's "architectural skull" and the blocky high forehead of Whale's most famous creation.
Whale disgraces himself, embarrassing an ex-lover (David Dukes) and insulting Cukor, but he doesn't care: "I have no reputation - I'm free as the air." At the same time, he wants people to know that he also directed such non-horror classics as "Journey's End" and "Showboat," and that most of the "Frankenstein" sequels were directed by "hacks."
Contradictory to the end, McKellen's Whale is proud and vain, but also on the edge of abandoning the identity he has forged since childhood, when he was regarded as "a freak of nature."
As Whale finds himself overcome with nostalgia, drawn back to thoughts of World War I's trenches, a lost lover and a generation that was wiped out, the bond grows between the dying director and the younger man, who has his own difficult memories to reckon with.
Condon and his gifted cinematographer, Stephen M. Katz, seal it with a series of dreamy images, accompanied by Carter Burwell's lovely, melancholy score, that blend Whale's Gothic 1930s visual style with a wide-screen 1950s sensibility.
In the end, "Gods and Monsters" isn't about movies or war or fame. Those are merely the specific topics in a more wide-ranging drama about passion and loneliness, the frustrations of old age and the connections people make in spite of their differences and prejudices.