#9 ‘Mary Shelley’/’The Founder’

Movie night date – 24/04/19. Post date – 25/04/19.

Cough…cough cough cough…I’m alive! IT’S ALIVE! How ironic I chose to phrase it that way, given one of the movies… Well, I’m kinda alive…still coughing up phlegm…wait, that’s how you spell phlegm?! Why couldn’t it be as easy as flem?! Oh English…why do you suck so? Anyway! This week’s movies finally are the biographical movies! It began with the 2017 movie ‘Mary Shelley’ by Haifaa al-Mansour, followed by the 2016 movie ‘The Founder’ by John Lee Hancock.

Mary Shelley – 2017 – Haifaa al-Mansour- 121 Mins

‘Mary Shelley’ was one of those movies; people from my generation will be able to relate, but it’s one of those movies where you’re up late and should be sleeping but instead you’re watching YouTube videos that pop up recommended for you. That, and my mother and sister won tickets to it and saw it and liked it so I was keen to watch it. I still haven’t read ‘Frankenstein’, or as it’s fully titled, ‘Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus’, I have read an abridged children’s edition I picked up from a book sale sometime ago so I could follow the relation to the story. While this isn’t that story, or however Hollywood portrays it, this is about the tragic life of Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin, the woman who wrote the great Gothic book in anonymity as Mary Shelley.

The first fact I found out about the movie was about the director. Haifaa al-Mansour is the first female Saudi Arabian director to come from there, which is something I didn’t expect. While she does not have a large filmography and these two films are done from small film companies, I thoroughly enjoyed this movie. I have no problem with small film company movies; as a matter of fact sometimes I prefer them, but this one seemed very good. True to the time and a subtle soundtrack, but a powerful message of persistence and perseverance. Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin’s life was not easy and the message is rather bluntly explained at the end:

[but] I underestimated the depths of despair and the weight of regret we were to endure. I lost everything to be with you, Percy. Always set out to create something wonderful something beautiful. But something volatile seethed within us … but if I had not learned to fight through the anguish I would not have found this voice again. My choices made me who I am. And I regret nothing.

Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin from ‘Mary Shelley’

The era was well kept. Science was a thing of an evening out, where Mary sees a man shock the lower half of a frog to make its legs move. Men were bold and in charge and women had little to no say in many things. Age was but a number. If the movie is to be believed, she ran away from home to follow her lover at a young age and followed him eventually to a holiday with Lord Byron and John William Polidori in Geneva, Switzerland where the weather of the year of 1816, which would become known as the ‘Year Without A Summer’ would cause them to stay together in a villa and make a competition to write a ghost story. Mary would write ‘Frankenstein’ at age 21, and John William Polidori would write the first story of vampires, ‘The Vampyre’. Mary would not achieve an author status as no one would publish a woman’s story, so she would publish it anonymously forwarded by her lover Percy. Polidori’s work would be taken by Lord Byron’s publisher and published as him and drive Polidori to depression and suicide. The tale is very strong in its messages, and I love it.

The Founder – 2016 – John Lee Hancock- 115 Mins

Ah ‘The Founder’…another movie found by the trailer YouTube recommended to me. I have mixed emotions about this film, but I settle on liking it because of it. The film follows the story of Ray Kroc, the man who would create the McDonalds fast food chain. While I wish the story was a happy one; it very much so isn’t. This movie keeps making me think about so many things because of its nature. The film…gah, man this film has so many points to talk about. I’ll try my best to speak my opinion on them.

The film to me has no happy ending, and yet it is very inspiring in a way. At least, to a degree. I’ll summarise the film as Ray Kroc is a man who discovers a restaurant in California run by Dick and Mac McDonald, the first McDonalds and franchises their ‘Speedee Service System’, which we know know days as fast food and eventually takes ownership of the whole thing in smart moves and devious plays. The mindset of Ray Kroc is an admirable one of persistence and perseverance, but it is one that ironically contrasts Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin. Her determination is somewhat limited to the extents of her humanity and morality. Ray Kroc on the other hand is out to win at any cost. He puts his ideology well in the film:

While you two boys were content to sit back and be a couple of all so round. I want to take the future, I want to win, and you don’t get there by being aw-shucks nice guys sap. There’s no place in business for people like that. Business is war. It’s dog eat dog, rat eat rat. If my competitor were drowning I’d walk over and I’d put a hose right in his mouth.

Ray Kroc from ‘The Founder’

I may be alone in my own thinkings of this film as I am by no means focused on myself being high and mighty in the future. I would not be so careless of other people. That’s probably why I don’t wanna go into business. I don’t have the bite for it. So that is my dilemma. The movie is a harsh one. In an inspirational way of promoting the message of persistence it shows how it can go a dark path. I don’t think I’d be happy being Ray Kroc. Ray Kroc was a motivated guy who knew what he wanted and took it. The ambition was admirable, but I would not admire the morals of him. A stellar casting though! Michael Keyton did amazing, Nick Offerman and John Carroll Lynch do just as well, and it was funny to see B. J. Novak in the film, an actor I haven’t seen much of other than ‘Saving Mr Banks’, another biopic film I will watch at some point. I know he is in ‘The Office’…US one? Probably…anyway, I need to watch that too, but he did great too! The whole cast was well picked and did amazing. I like this film, I cannot say any more than that.

Closing Thoughts

‘The Founder’ while a great movie, bummed me out a lot, so I am gonna do some children’s movies again. Specifically two Disney movies. I have a list of the movies I haven’t seen and need to start crossing them off and I will pick one of my top three favourite Disney’s and watch that as my classic. Fingers crossed my cough is gone by them…As always:

Hope you’re having a wonderful day and keep smiling.