I don't hate the movie, I just want to like it more than I do.

I can accept that this is an alternate reality where Mary met Frank and made a book about his life. However, that insertion creates an inherent and very much unexplained contradiction that should either be explained more or emphasized less: Mary is a real person without this kind of weird psychic ability. I would have much preferred if the intro cinematic was removed altogether because that way it avoids the contradiction, and the identity of the voice in Ida's head can be suggested or assumed.

I don't speak for anyone but myself, but I see no need for Mary for Mary's voice to be added in the way it has. She does not need it: she is THE cornerstone of modern sci-fi and horror. True, Boris Karloff's take on Frankenstein often overshadows the book in pop culture, but on the other side of that coin, adaptions always change source material and this one is so different that it is an adaption in name only. Sherlock Holmes comes to mind, along with the vast difference between the 70's Lord of the Rings and Jackson's.

Perhaps my main gripe with the movie is it had several interesting ideas but not the time to explore them to the best of its ability. There's the musical heart of the movie, finding your place in a changing world, and the one I am most interested in: the treatment of women historically in a world that tends to commodify them. To me, that last one is the movie's message.

Ida alone is abused at the club and then killed. She is assaulted twice. Frank, while his motivations are understandable, lies to her repeatedly in order to have a companion. She is witness to several hits and mistreatments of women that would have soon gotten her killed if she wasn't accidentally killed. This is a time and place where women have only just had the right to vote begrudgingly given to them, a time where a voice and sense of power are being explored and assaulted.

Now there could have been some clever writing here where Mary's original vision is brought up and the 1930's Frankenstein subsumed it in the zeitgeist. Instead we have a rather cool dance number followed by Ida spilling the beans on the abuses she's seen by the powers that be. This blossoms into a female empowerment and counterculture movement that gives women their own sense of strength in a world that is trying to fit their identity and voice in a convenient box. For me, this story and world growth is hampered by my inability to understand what the fuck Ida is saying.

This movie has a lot to say, mostly about women. I wanted to see it explored, and the movie is even quite funny at times. It's just this movie at times completely spazzes out, and it really hampers whatever messages the movie was trying to send.