It will probably be honored as a triumph of filmmaking (and indeed has already one the National Board of Review’s Best Picture award), but while Gods and Monsters is a good film, it’s really more of a curiosity than a legitimate masterpiece.

The adaptation of a fictionalized account of the final days of director Frank Whale (best known for directing the first two Frankenstein movies), director Condon’s story is really a simple one, about Whale’s infatuation with his gardner Clay (Fraser). That Whale is a not-so-in-the-closet homosexual is pretty clear up front, but for some reason, Clay can’t figure that out.

What follows is a series of encounters between the two, the degeneration of Whale’s mind thanks to a stroke, and, most curiously, one dream/fantasy sequence after another, wherein Whale relives his childhood, World War I, and his years in Hollywood.

The dream sequence, long known as the biggest crutch a screenwriter can use, works. At least part-way. Because Whale’s mind is going south, we are asked to indulge his fantasies as near-reality for him. Like I say, this works, but only up to a point. After two hours, the device has grown stale and predictable.

Still, Gods is a truly good film with a great cast (McKellan and especially Redgrave, playing Whale’s maid, both deserve serious praise), and what must have been a tricky adaptation of the novel on which it was based is also a feat unto itself.



A Whale of a tale.