Cast:
Julia Roberts (Mary Reilly; Sasha Hanau as young Mary Reilly), John Malkovich (Dr. Henry Jekyll / Edward Hyde), Michael Sheen (Bradshaw), George Cole (Mr. Poole), Kathy Staff (Mrs. Kent), Bronagh Gallagher (Annie), Glenn Close (Mrs. Faraday), Michael Gambon (Mr. Reilly), Linda Bassett (Mrs. Reilly), Henry Goodman (Haffinger), Ciarán Hinds (Sir Danvers Carew), Tim Barlow (the Vicar), and Stephen Boxer (the Inspector) Directed by Stephen Frears (#2333 - High Fidelity)
Review:
I guess if anybody needed a re-invention of the old horror stuff, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde probably did merit consideration for the 1990s. Actually, the movie is based on the 1990 novel Mary Reilly by Valerie Martin, which was inspired by Robert Louis Stevenson's 1886 novella that I'm sure you know, well, didn't have a woman as among the key focus. Christopher Hampton (British playwright/screenwriter previous responsible for such works as Les Liaisons Dangereuses) wrote the screenplay and there were initial plans for Tim Burton (announced as early as 1993) to direct after he did Ed Wood, reportedly with Winona Ryder in mind for the lead. However, the ramifications of Wood being rushed to make a decision and the overmentioned Wood movie being put in turnaround led him dropping out. As much as TriStar Pictures wanted Daniel Day-Lewis to pair off with Julia Roberts, they got Roberts paired with John Malkovich instead. Amidst production delays from Tristar changing the release date over and over (to where it finally landed in February 1996 after production had started in 1994) to 25 drafts being written to quibbles over the ending (to the point where the studio tried making their own cut only to see test audiences not care for it either), the film plopped as a flop with audiences*.
There were various people in Stevenson's life that probably influenced him in making the original novella, whether that was the double life of cabinet-maker William Brodie or murderer Eugène Chantrelle. It probably would go hand-in-hand with Bram Stoker's Dracula [1992] and Mary Shelley's Frankenstein [1994] in deciding, hey, big Gothic re-inventions of old horror stuff that sees a desire of seeing repressed evil urges basically go for a desire to escape from a form of depression that sees the same type of things go awry. The result is the strangest type of disappointment: it isn't as nearly as the odd reputation that it garnered at the time, but it also isn't as interesting to actually hold up and defend besides calling it a close misfire. It aims for the horror of a woman living in the margins who has curiosity over what she sees from Jekyll and Hyde in sympathy and also revulsion. A good chunk of what Roberts does (besides wearing some scar makeup because hey, rat bites) is basically observing what is going around her that is very, very, very drawn out. Yes, even during the one transformation sequence of Hyde/Jekyll, she sits close by and watches, because heaven forbid anything of substance is allowed to just happen. If she is meant to be the face that drives a movie without saying much, I'd probably just take the bus and look somewhere else for presence. Whether by choice or otherwise, Malkovich mainly just comes off as awkward in the attempted display of a man in turmoil, with one side actually coming off as interesting (the bawdy, opinionated measure of a man that likes to kick people) and the other side coming off as a strange type of seething monotony that makes you ask the question, "Yes, and?". Every step of the way basically comes with weird caveats that tease rather than actually cut loose for 108 minutes that lets Close and Gambon basically sit on the sidelines for a painfully mundane movie (at least Cole gets to be a tiny bit jealous as the eldest of butlers). You get the occasional flash of blood and the idea of a body-count, but most times one is spent experiencing the day-to-day life of a person get upheaved by, well, things happening (oh but she doesn't hate the evil men in her life, that's a real keeper). You'd have better luck asking one of your parents how their week went.
Sure, it has a certain type of look that actually seems pretty appropriate for the setting, but there is something about how the movie maneuvers that makes you feel as if you were watching a poor man's The Two Faces of Dr. Jekyll (1960). It's the 1990s for God's sake, you can't even cut loose for a really sexually charged scene? I would even settle for a real head-popping scene, because if you're going to tell a "companion piece" to the most well-told, well-known thing in existence that ends (most of the time, anyway) with dire circumstances for Dr. Jekyll, you have to at least have something to stir that stands out! Working women get slaughtered, the tease of libido gets strung around, but hey, we get to see the poor little maid grapple with what the hell is going on with the sulk of someone who can't get out of a long-winding conversation at the store. As a whole, there are some interesting moments to be had in the horrors of being swayed one way or the other by a man in turmoil, but Mary Reilly trudges along with no sense of involvement of actually getting to where it wants to go without dragging its feet until only the devoted have given up. You can only go so far with a mediocre movie before it all turns to mush, and that I suppose is the real lesson to learn when digging for "horror" and turning up for this.
Overall, I give it 6 out of 10 stars.
Next up: The Last Broadcast.
*There were, however, a few defenders of the film, mainly Roger Ebert - https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/mary-reilly-1996
I didn't have time to see it, but he did at least one interview on the circuit about the film around the time it was out - Stephen Frears "Mary Reilly" 1996 - Bobbie Wygant Archive - YouTube
Or, alternatively: 'Mary Reilly' star defies easy expectations
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