Rowing with the Wind () is a 1988 Spanish film written and directed by Gonzalo Suárez. Concerning the English writer Mary Shelley and her circle, it stars Hugh Grant, Lizzy McInnerny, Valentine Pelka, and Elizabeth Hurley. It won six Goya Awards.
In the summer of 1816, English poet Percy Shelley, his soon to be wife Mary Shelley (daughter of William Godwin and Mary Wollstonecraft), and Mary's stepsister and companion Claire Clairmont take a holiday with Lord Byron and his physician John William Polidori at a villa rented by Byron at Lake Leman, Switzerland.
Byron challenges each of the friends to write a horror story, and Mary begins her novel, Frankenstein. She imagines the monster becoming real, and for the next six years, as tragedy befalls those around her, she believes the creature of her imagination is the cause.
Meanwhile, Claire has Byron's baby, is estranged from him and barred from seeing her daughter. Byron and Percy continue their friendship, the one hedonistic, the other idealistic. The Shelleys move near Pisa.
Shooting locations included the (Asturias), Switzerland, and Venice.
ÃÂngel Fernández-Santos of El PaÃÂs declared Rowing with the Wind a "very ambitious film that almost always lives up to its ambition", falling short of being a masterpiece because of a lack of interest of a few scenes and because of the small presence of actress Lizzy McInnerny in the face of the "enormity of the tragic task that the film has in store" for her character.
|- | | San Sebastián International Film Festival || Silver Shell for Best Director || Gonzalo Suárez || || |- | rowspan = "13" | || rowspan = "13" | | colspan = "2" | Best Film || || rowspan = "13" | |- | Best Director || Gonzalo Suárez || |- | Best Original Screenplay || Gonzalo Suárez || |- | Best Supporting Actor || José Luis Gómez || |- | Best Cinematography || Carlos Suárez || |- | Best Editing || José Salcedo || |- | Goya Award for Best Original Score || Alejandro Massó || |- | Best Production Supervision || José G. Jacoste || |- | Best Art Direction || Wolfgang Burmann || |- | Best Costume Design || Yvonne Blake || |- | Best Makeup and Hairstyles || Romana González, Josefa Morales || |- | Best Sound || Daniel Goldstein, Ricardo Steinberg || |- | Best Special Effects || Reyes Abades ||