Product: Gods and Monsters (1998)
Rating: 5.0
Deserved a much better reception
A sexually upfront, retired film director who happened to be gay (Ian McKellen). His tut-tutting Germanic housekeeper (Lynn Redgrave). Their hostile, hunky ex-Marine lawnboy (Brendan Fraser). The characters are the stuff of stereotype but in this fine movie, based loosely on the last days of 1930s movie director James Whale (*Frankenstein*, *Bride of Frankenstein*, *Showboat*), excellent writing and performances combine to make GODS AND MONSTERS a worthwhile if occasionally provocative film about the classic themes of love and death.It's 1957 and the aging Whale, comfortably retired in L.A., take a shine to the new lawnboy Clayton Boone (a fictional creation) and asks him to pose for a painting. The young man is reluctant at first but goes along for the easy work and ready money. Clay is -- let's say -- pretty touchy about his virtue until Whale makes it clear the boy is in no danger from him. A curious platonic friendship emerges and grows based on mutual trust and respect (one small example: Whale, escorted by Clay, attends a snotty lawn party and derives immense satisfaction from twitting the still-closeted George Cukor).This film is almost entirely a character study and the events that close the movie most likely happened in real life: Whale was found dead in his swimming pool, most likely a suicide brought on by diminished capacity. The real action in this picture are the multiple indignities young Whale suffered as a hobbled preacher's kid and a novice Army officer in the horrible trenches of World War One, like mini-autobiographical snippents that Whale "imagines" cinematically and relates to Clay. Some welcome comic relief follows in a dream Clay has, a campy recreation of BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN, with Clay himself cast as the blockheaded monster on a flawlessly re-created Universal Pictures studio set. Those sequences are in bluish black-and-white but most of the film has a deliberately burnished, Fifties widescreen Technicolor look that is just grand to watch. The powerful performances are key here, as well: rather than merely triangulate his three powerful stars, director and co-writer Bill Condon pairs off Fraser, McKellen and Redgrave and lets their characters grow in nuance, not react strictly to form.I do not know why GODS AND MONSTERS was a relative disappointment at the box office when it played in 1998; perhaps McKellen's forthright portrayal of a gay man was too strong for the mass audience back then. Perhaps Brendan Fraser had, during that period, been stereotyped as a George-of-the-Jungle goofus and turned off the potential art-house crowd. (In fact, his performance in this pic is marvelous and every bit the equal of the two veterans he played off.) Although they occupy little screen play, the supporting task is fine too and includes Lolita Davidovich as Clay Boone's soon-to-be-ex-girlfriend and some dead ringers at the lawn party for Boris Karloff, Elsa Lancaster and Elizabeth Taylor. Production standards do not disappoint, both interior and exterior shots are sumptuous and full of meaning; in fact, one of the high points of director Condon's very good Commentary on the disc is learning how much was put up there on screen at relatively low cost and in very little time.I feel GODS AND MONSTERS has been unjustly ignored and feel it deserves a wider audience. For what it's worth it's not a "gay movie" any more than it is an ex-Marine movie but tells its own story with an almost chamber-like precision and a pinpoint visual palette. Not a kiddie movie but a literate film that combines wit, brave characterizations and lots of good old entertainment value. Highly recommended..