| Mary Reilly Released: 1996 MPAA Rating: R Genre: Mad Scientist Nuts and Bolts: Boy meets Girl. Boy wants Girl. Boy takes miracle drug in order to enhance sexual prowess in the desperate hopes of shagging Girl. In short, a two hour long Viagra commercial. Summary: So here we have Mary Reilly (Julia Roberts). Mary is a young Irish working class girl in service to the famed 19th century London physician Doctor Henry Jekyll (John Malkovich). Mary isn't quite like the other chambermaids working at Jekyll's lush estate. For one thing, she has these small inexplicable scars across her hands and neck. For another, she harbors a restrained curiosity that is all but absent amongst her rather emotionally vacuous colleagues. But she doesn't complain and continues on with her chores under the watchful eye of the master butler Mister Poole. But Jekyll takes notice of Mary one day. He offers to examine her scars for her, but she politely declines. Later on he finds Mary in his private library. Impressed with the fact that this homely door mouse isn't completely brain dead he sparks conversation with her. But these little chats invoke the ire of Mister Poole who seems to think that Mary is spending way too much time with the 'Master'. Now Jekyll is a lonely old sot and he has just completed work on what he deems to be a 'medical breakthrough'. Without going into too much detail he explains this to Mary who couldn't be less interested than if you told her that cheese makes for a fine after-dinner aphrodisiac. But Mary continues to plod along feigning interest in the Doctor's mysterious exploits as she brings him his porridge. One day however, Mary decides to reveal to Jekyll how she earned her scars. Apparently when she was but a wee moppet she lived in a ramshackle cottage with her drunken abusive father and boring humdrum mother. One day she broke a cheap ass coffee cup and pop had to punish her. He beat her with his belt and locked her in a stairwell closet accompanied by a few rats. The rats took turns gnawing at Mary's vittles and that is how she acquired her various scars. The following day Doctor Jekyll calls all the servants together for a meeting. He announces that a new houseguest named Edward Hyde will be staying at the mansion and that he is to have complete run of the house as well as the adjacent laboratory. This naturally sends the little scamps into a frenzy of gossip-laden curiosity that would even make the cast from Gosford Park blush. But Mary's curiosity only increases when she begins discovering bloody handkerchiefs bearing the doctor's initials and howls of torment coming from the lab late at night. Is this some kind of funky euro-trash homoerotic escapade the good doctor is embarking upon or could it be something far more sinister? Some time later, Jekyll asks Mary Reilly to deliver a letter to a woman named Mrs. Farraday (Glenn Close). Farraday is the powder-puffed matriarchal proprietor of a fancy gentleman's bordello (Or what I prefer to call: A Whorehouse). Jekyll's letter is a request for a room for Mister Hyde until such time that he can provide furnishings of his own. Apparently Farraday and Jekyll have some sort of secret past together, but she agrees to accommodate the doctor's assistant. Late that evening, it turns out that Hyde visits the kootchie-cabin and makes with the wetwork. The exact details aren't described but the room is coated in blood. Later still, we find the shambling cloaked figure racing down the street. He stops a young girl and knocks her to the ground. He then proceeds to violently stomp on her stomach with his boot. See? Even back then the Girl Scouts of America were pissing people off! Anyway, Hyde sneaks back into the lab where we discover that he looks an awful lot like John Malkovich (Weird innit?). Mary sees Hyde and tries to well...hide. But Hyde takes notice of her and throws some eerie remarks in her direction. By this time, word of Hyde's presence has reached the rest of the house staff and they all wonder how it came to be that this rough-hewn man should be in the doctor's employ. One servant, a man named Bradshaw theorizes that Hyde may in fact be blackmailing Doctor Jekyll. Mary sees Hyde once again, but this time he reveals that he is aware of Mary's sour relationship with her father. Mary is furious with Doctor Jekyll for revealing what she believes to be something of strict confidence. She lets her dissatisfaction be known to Jekyll who in turn claims that Hyde read through his personal notes without permission. Something else seems to be bothering the good doctor, but he isn't very forthcoming with the information. An angry Mrs. Farraday arrives at the Jekyll home all a' bluster. She believes Hyde to be responsible for murder and for the destruction of his rented room. Mary escorts Farraday to Jekyll's quarters. Jekyll explains that Hyde was assisting an injured woman and could never be held responsible for any acts of violence. Farraday doesn't believe him though. As Mary leaves the room Mister Hyde appears and tears Mrs. Farraday's head off. Shortly after, Jekyll has Mary assist Hyde on some various errands. He takes her into the streets of London's east end where he collects various body parts from the gutters of the slaughterhouses and hospital sick rooms. Hyde uses these meaty leftovers in the gruesome experiments being performed in Jekyll's laboratory. And if that isn't enough to darken her day, Mary also discovers that her mother has died. Mister Poole allows her time off to take care of her mother's affects. She wants to give mum a proper funeral but doesn't really have the bank. The old woman's landlord keeps the body stuffed inside of a broom closet at the boarding house where she was staying. He sold off all of the lady's belongings in order to payoff the money she owed. The remainder of the money goes towards paying for her funeral. What does all this have to do with the rest of the plot? Abso-fucking-lutely nothing! Having finished her business, Mary returns to the Jekyll house. She has one more close encounter with Mister Hyde who decides to explore some of his more lascivious behavior. He pins her down to the laboratory table and tears open the back of her shirt. He begins licking her body and makes ready to have a go with her, but all of a sudden he suffers an attack of conscience. He can't really explain it and neither can Mary. He lets her go. Shortly after he exits, Doctor Jekyll appears. Mary and the rest of the house staff are beginning to wonder why they have never seen Doctor Jekyll and Mister Hyde in the same room together. The main cast members explore some more melodramatic behavior for a while before Mister Hyde decides to have one final showdown with Mary Reilly. He tells her that he wants to kill her, but for some reason he can't. Mary pretty much just stands around like a deer caught in the headlights of an oncoming car. Hyde decides that there is only one way to end whatever torment there is that might be going on inside of him. He retreats back to the lab. Mary follows him and finds Hyde injecting himself in the neck with a syringe. He begins convulsing and flopping about on the floor in excruciating agony. Before Mary's eyes, Edward Hyde TRANSFORMS into Doctor Jekyll. They were the same person all along! (Bet you never saw THAT one coming did you?) As Jekyll slumps to the floor, Mary rushes upon him. We learn that Hyde had introduced a poison into the final injection and the combined material was killing them both. Mary and Jekyll share a sensitive exchange before the good doctor calmly passes away. Acting/Dialogue: If there is one thing that I absolutely cannot stand it is when Americans try and imitate foreign accents in films. Basically because our British cousins will likely call us on it and think that we are nothing more than a bunch of beer-swilling uncultured yanks. And for the most part they would be correct, but we certainly don't need America's sweetheart Julia Roberts proving their point to them. In all fairness, Julia does a halfway decent job in portraying an Irish brogue. She's a helluva lot more capable than Heather Graham was in From Hell. But even though there are scenes where she is completely convincing, there are also just as many where the old 'Julia' rises up and reminds us that we are in fact not watching a true to life actress, but instead we are seeing a glamorized schmaltzy movie star who forgot to put her mascara on that day. The million-dollar smile is smeared away in favor of long stares and morose exchanges. All in all however, this still remains Roberts' best performance to date. John Malkovich gives a very rhythmic performance here. He doesn't chew up the scenery the way one would expect the Hyde character to do. Instead, he prefers to start off very subtle and slowly work his way up into a fever pitch. Even as Hyde, he prefers to slowly eke out the good doctor's emotional impotence by way of anguished facial contortions and lecherous gazes. But Malkovich falls just shy of giving us the definitive Mister Hyde performance. Because so much of Hyde's affairs are scaled back we really see very little of the internal struggle plaguing this man's identity. Although this isn't Malkovich's strongest performance, we can see that he really enjoyed doing this movie and any chance to see him darting his maniacal eyes across the screen proves to be a better than average day. Once again we have the case of an American actor attempting the role of a European character. Unlike other acclaimed performers however, Malkovich is at least classically trained and doesn't feel the need to further his career by slurping on George Clooney's nut sack. The real scene-stealer in this flick actually comes from the most unlikely corner; Glenn Close. Glenn is the hideous looking bordello madam Mrs. Farraday. She's got her cockney down perfect and proves to be even more horrific than Hyde himself. Her character is kind of like a demonic version of Murphy Brown. Gore: The gore is very restrained in this movie. It is given to us in small pattering spatters and does more to elevate the horror than a good ole fashioned bucket of blood would likely achieve. All in all, tastefully done and suitable for a story set in 19th century Victorian England. The most viscerally gruesome scene would undoubtedly be when Hyde tears Mrs. Farraday's head off and holds up in the air. But the crème de la crème is when we finally get to see Jekyll's true transformation into Mister Hyde. This isn't one of those crappy Universal transformations where images of a wolf face are slowly super-imposed overtop of Lon Chaney Junior's masculine visage. Instead, we see the anguished Hyde going through spasms of rage as he injects himself with the serum to induce his reversion back into Doctor Jekyll. Jekyll's form literally begins to pull and tear from within Hyde's body until it spills over and completely dominates the maniac's quivering form. The computer work used here was subtle enough but I think I would have preferred some good ole fashioned Stan Winston latex. Guilty Pleasures: Once again, we have a movie where Julia Roberts doesn't take her top off. Not that I really want her to, but I can't see as how she can possibly contribute fuck all else to a movie. We see a couple of hookers milling about at Mrs. Farraday's less than reputable den of inequity, but nothing really impressive. The ladies may or may not swoon over the fact that Malkovich goes shirtless in the film's final leg revealing to all that he could in fact stand to sacrifice a few hours on the rowing machine. Bo-Flex Johnny! BO-FLEX! But despite his flabby midsection, he still manages to elicit squeals of pleasure from fans when he drags his Gene Simmons inspired tongue across Mary's naked back. The Good: With the notable exceptions of Count Dracula and Ebenezer Scrooge, the tale of Doctor Jekyll is probably the most cinematically reinvented classic literary character of all time. The part has been heralded by such thespians including James Cruze, John Barrymore, Fredric March, Spencer Tracy, Boris Karloff, Paul Massie, Jack Palance, Ralph Bates, Kirk Douglas, Michael Caine and now John Malkovich. Each one brings a rich new blend to the Hyde mystique. What makes Malkovich's work different from his predecessors is that he tries to achieve a sense of balance between the two warring personalities. Even as Jekyll he is seen as calm and polite and yet distant and cold at the same time. This is the inherent strength that he brings to the Hyde character as well. He shows that Hyde truly is an extension of Jekyll and not merely a reflective disparate personality. This is something that runs counter to not only the original Robert Louis Stevenson vision but to other theatrical treatments as well. The problem with past incarnations is that the dichotomy of personalities was very black and white. There was an easy to recognize line of demarcation between Jekyll and Hyde. Jekyll was good thereby Hyde was obviously bad. But Director Stephen Frears decides to add another level to that. He superimposes a gray area between the two wherein we learn that Hyde is really just the reality of Jekyll minus the inhibitions. Classically, Jekyll always wanted to exorcise the negative persona from his person, but in this version the good doctor actually seeks out those rebellious stirrings that he has always been afraid to explore. Deep down inside he prefers the darkness and the evil because he realizes in his heart of hearts that good is dumb. But what I love most about this film is the scenery. There is a great overwhelming mystique surrounding London's gaslight years that is not easily defined. I suppose it come down to the ability of various writers and artists to take something that is inherently diseased and rotting and turn it into something beautiful. So many aspects of this time period work perfectly with the horror genre. We have fog, cobblestone streets, towering black buildings, saucy pubs, brothels and horses clopping down the avenues pulling darkened wine-colored carriages. This is the time of Jack the Ripper, Sherlock Holmes, the Invisible Man, Joseph Merrick and Dorian Grey. Mary Reilly perfectly captures everything that is essential about the Victorian era. Cinematographer Phillipe Rousselot manages to illustrate the epic expansiveness of London's soured darkened streets while at the same time presenting it as a clustered and claustrophobic venue. It is no easy trick to flavor the soup with so many different kinds of spices, but Rousselot manages to do just that. It is for this reason alone that I feel Mary Reilly is a movie worth watching. The duality of Henry Jekyll is much like the duality of the movie's audience; in so far as there is really on two ways that one can look at it. You either love it for what it is, or you hate it because of what it might have been. The Bad: This is a movie about misplaced priorities. The focus shifts from the dominating Jekyll/Hyde character to that of a lackluster chambermaid and therein lies the story's fatal flaw. Mostly because, no one really gives an oily shit about poor old Mary Reilly. Seriously, I could give one quarter of a damn. Yeah, her father beat her. So what? This is 19th century gothic London for fuck's sake! Not everything is lox, bagels and Mary fucking Poppins! Dick Van Dyke isn't going to suddenly spring out and start crooning "It's a jolly 'oliday!" This is Whitechapel district, East End, Jack the fucking Ripper LONDON and it is about whores, venereal diseases, vermin, palsy, vaginal warts, bad teeth, bad weather and buggery. It's a hard knock life and the London bridges are falling DOWN motherfucker and if you want to survive, you best step the fuck up out of the way! So in lieu of the graphic moral dilapidation of the true industrial revolution, am I supposed to be impressed that some Irish waif gets beaten with a belt by her drunkard father? But Mary's greatest flaw is that she appears completely complacent with everything around her. Sure she has nightmares once in a while, but so what? She expresses no anger towards her father for what he has done and is completely resigned towards living the drab uneventful life of the working class. This chick is Higgins on Valium. Even when she sees her deceased mother folded up and shoved into a broom closet, she barely even shudders a gasp. She just rolls her eyes as if to say "Well that's rude." I mean…this is her goddamn MOTHER for fuck's sake! But you would think that it was Mary's dried up corpse resting in the closet for as much interest as she seemed to show. The sad truth is kiddies, is that if you can't endear me towards your main character, then how in the hell am I expected to pay any attention at all to the rest of the cast? Mary's complacency is also what kills any motivating factor behind her character and her involvement with Doctor Jekyll. Because of this, the movie fails to illustrate exactly what it is meant to be. In some ways I suppose this is intended to be a romance of sorts. There is certainly sexual tension between the two lead characters, but there is little more than that. There is no true expression of passion between them aside from a few titillating nods and exchanges. Jekyll is loath to express his true desires and Mary simply doesn't have any. In truth, I don't think she found any true interest in Jekyll at all aside from a mild case of erotic curiosity. The girl doesn't even find herself completely repulsed by the loathsome Mister Hyde. She just really doesn't seem to give a shit at all, and by extension why should we? Now maybe I'm just old fashioned, but dammit I miss the old ape-like buck-toothed Mister Hyde! The only physical distinction between the two here is that Hyde is clean-shaven and walks with a limp. His hair is also a tad longer. It doesn't exactly take a rocket scientist to piece together this gimp's true identity. Hell even one of the more outspoken house servants takes note of the similarities between them. It's reminds me of those nose-picking morons you see at the movies who can't distinguish between the gold colored C3-P0 and the gray colored C3-P0. Literary purists out there will be disheartened to discover that this movie holds very little in common with the original story The Strange Case of Doctor Jekyll and Mister Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson. It captures the theme and environment well enough, but it takes great liberties with events and characters. Most notably, there never was a Mary Reilly character in the original story. In fact, I'd be hard pressed to remember any female characters at all except for the tarts that Hyde dallied with down at the local pub. For those of you who are not familiar with the original work, I would not look upon Mary Reilly as a reliable set of Cliff Notes. Mary Reilly is the end result of what happens when you mash seven different flavors of bubble gum together. Singularly they are marvelous little brightly colored squares of fruit flavored ecstasy, but when you combine them they become a big drab gooey gray mess. Just because you have the ingredients in your pantry, it doesn't mean you should throw them all together and hope to make a good stew. Great Lines: "Mary Reilly." --Edward Hyde whispers Mary's name as he stalks up behind her. These are Hyde's first words in the movie. "I have become what I always wanted to be. I am the knife as well as the wound." --Henry Jekyll "I am the bandit. He is merely the cave in which I hide." - Edward Hyde "He came from out of the shadows…as if he were made from them." -Mrs. Kent's description of Mister Hyde. "Maybe he is one of the doctor's grown up wild oats?" -The servant Bradshaw commenting on the physical similarities between Jekyll and Hyde. "He may be well spoken, but he could never be mistaken for a gentleman." -Mrs. Kent paraphrasing Mister Poole's description of Edward Hyde. Overall Rating: 5 out of 10 severed heads. |
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