Writer/director Bill Condon skillfully adapts Christopher Bran’s novel about James Whale, the director of the 1931 version of Frankenstein and a classic Brit in Hollywood. Sir Ian McKellen plays Whale as a tortured soul, with a charming veneer barely covering his anxieties about The Great War, and seeking solace in a relationship with his gardener Clayton Boone (Brendan Fraser). The delicacy of this story is balanced by plenty of evocations of cinema classics to please film buffs, as Elsa Lancaster (Rosalind Ayres), Colin Clive (Matt McKenzie) and Boris Karloff (Jack Betts) are all brought to life without the use of lightning, and the atmosphere of the expat community of 1930’s Hollywood is brought to life with considerable charm. Fraser and McKellen appear in so many daft movies that it’s a pleasure to see them with something serious to do, conveying the essence of a complex relationship between two men at a time when many viewed such love as something monstrous.
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