This biographical drama by Bill Condon follows the last days in the life of British director James Whale, who is best remembered today as the author of the classic Frankenstein horrors with Boris Karloff as the monster. However, Whale made all those most famous and famous films during the thirties, and now it is the mid-fifties and the old and sick and rather forgotten Whale (Ian McKellen in the role that brought him the only Oscar nomination for the leading role while he was nominated for the supporting role for Gandalf) lives quite alone. He ended up in a kind of self-imposed exile in that typical California villa, since he never hid his homosexuality and Whale was one of the first big Hollywood faces to openly show his tendencies.
He also experienced several strokes that affected his motor skills, but also his memory, and he is cared for by his longtime maid Hanna (Lynn Redrgave was nominated for a supporting female role). Through the fog, Whale remembers his youth and growing up in London, through World War I and his arrival in Hollywood, and he also struggles with depression, thinking about suicide because he is aware that his best days are behind him and that it can only get worse. Well, even though he is old and sick, the wiggly Whale is still a real provocateur who likes to shock and challenge everyone around him, especially with his open homosexuality.
His attention will thus be attracted by the young gardener Clayton Boone (Brendan Fraser), whose constitution somewhat reminds him of his Frankenstein. And the old eccentric will somehow persuade this simple-minded young man to pose for his pictures, and Boone is initially unaware of Whale’s tendencies and that he is attracted to him, although it is obvious from the beginning that the relationship will not end the way the old man would probably like. But while Whale is generally ashamed of his sexual preferences, which many would like to see happen, he seems to be ashamed of the films he made, which not only fell into oblivion, just like him, but most of them he treats the classics as if they were something out of fashion, outdated and useless, without any artistic value.
At the end of “Gods and Monsters”, Condon won an Oscar for the adapted screenplay, and it is a good and high-quality film, certainly not top-notch, which is carried by McKellen with a great performance. Probably because he found a lot of similarities with himself in the character of Whale, since even Gandalf did not hide that he was gay from the beginning of his career, and this British great practically only switched from theater to film at a later stage of his career. Although he has more than 120 roles in film and television to date, McKellen is one of the greatest British stage actors of the last six decades and the true successor to arguably the greatest British actor of all time, Laurence Olivier, and McKellen has won seven awards named after his predecessor.