From rec.arts.sf.reviews Wed Feb 28 11:23:07 1996 Path: news.ifm.liu.se!news.lejonet.se!newsfeed.tip.net!news.josnet.se!dos.canit.se!seunet!mn7.swip.net!mn6.swip.net!plug.news.pipex.net!pipex!tube.news.pipex.net!pipex!lade.news.pipex.net!pipex!tank.news.pipex.net!pipex!newsfeed.internetmci.com!chi-news.cic.net!news.midplains.net!gw2.att.com!nntphub.cb.att.com!not-for-mail From: leeper@mtgbcs.att.com (Mark R. Leeper) Newsgroups: rec.arts.movies.reviews,rec.arts.sf.reviews Subject: REVIEW: MARY REILLY Followup-To: rec.arts.movies.current-films,rec.arts.sf.movies Date: 27 Feb 1996 15:18:53 GMT Organization: AT&T, Middletown NJ Lines: 92 Sender: ecl@mtgpfs2.att.com (Evelyn C. Leeper) Approved: ecl@mtgpfs2.att.com Message-ID: <4gv7ct$5i2@nntpb.cb.att.com> Reply-To: leeper@mtgbcs.att.com NNTP-Posting-Host: mtgpfs2-bgate.mt.att.com Summary: r.a.m.r. #04781 Keywords: author=Leeper Originator: ecl@mtgpfs2 Xref: news.ifm.liu.se rec.arts.movies.reviews:4012 rec.arts.sf.reviews:903 MARY REILLY A film review by Mark R. Leeper Copyright 1996 Mark R. Leeper Capsule: Stevenson's classic of the potential for evil in us all is transformed into a feminist diatribe in which all men seem to be selfish and cruel, while most women are nurturing and victims. The telling is a dreary and dark twisting of a much better story. Rating: -1 (-4 to +4) Robert Louis Stevenson's "Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" was inspired by schizophrenics that Stevenson had studied and also by Edinburgh's notorious Deacon William Brodie--pious churchman and respected councilman by day and house burglar by night. (Jean Brodie claims him as a relative toward the end of the film THE PRIME OF MISS JEAN BRODIE.) Stevenson wanted to write first a horror story and second a parable about the latent beast in all of us. Valerie Martin's novel MARY REILLY retold the story from the point of view of Jekyll's maid, a character whom Stevenson neglected to mention. The newer novel transformed the story into a parable about the latent beast in all men and the cruelty of men toward women, peppering the story with bits of male misogyny from sources having nothing to do with Edward Hyde. Though subtlety was not a great concern of the book, what there was excised by Christopher Hampton's screenplay, directed by Stephen Frears. The resulting film is relentlessly downbeat and dark. It is as dark literally as it is in tone, seemingly set in a London that offers two kinds of weather: night and fog. Mary Reilly (played by Julia Roberts) is a new housemaid at Dr. Henry Jekyll's household. Jekyll (John Malkovich) takes a particular interest in her for the interesting scars on her arms and neck and later for the unusual fact that she could read. The household is run by the authoritarian and domineering butler Poole who likes Mary even less for the interest that his master shows her. Mary is a gentle sort inordinately bothered by simple everyday household chores like skinning and slicing a live and wriggling eel. The camera shows us this spectacle in loving detail just as it shows us the carcasses of skinned meat hanging in the market street. But in spite of these minor annoyances Mary likes the Jekyll household and receives from Jekyll unexpected kindness, considering that he is a man. It is in fact the only male kindness in the film. So things are really going the best that Mary has ever had them go for her, which is not saying very much. Then one day Jekyll announces that his assistant Edward Hyde (Malkovich) is to be given access to the house. Hyde, when we finally see him, is a genuine let-down. This has got to be the least differentiated Jekyll/Hyde pairing in cinema history. Jekyll has a short, light mustache and beard; Hyde has shoulder- length dark hair. No obvious attempt was made to make them sound at all different. In a dim light one could easily confuse one for the other, which is unfortunate because dim light is something this film has in great abundance. Perhaps one other difference is discernible: Jekyll is the one that seems half asleep, perhaps exhausted from the labors of his research. Hyde seems at least mostly awake. The weakness of the performance is particularly puzzling in that Malkovich under Frears direction previously gave us such a compelling Valmont in DANGEROUS LIAISONS (also written by Hampton). Julia Roberts does not look Victorian somehow and at least at first looks highly out of place in a maid's uniform. It takes a while to see her in this role and not think of previous roles she has played rather than as the Victorian chambermaid. Two fine actors under-used here are Glenn Close, almost unrecognizable as mistress of a bordello. (I believe the bordello is totally the invention of Valerie Martin's novel, incidentally.) Only slightly better used is Michael Gambon as Mary's nightmarish father. Gambon is a fine actor, best known perhaps for the British TV mini-series "The Singing Detective." A peculiarity of this film is that to understand what is going on, one should already know the Stevenson story, yet if one knows the story, the new film is almost totally redundant. The film builds to its surprise revelation fully realizing that the vast majority of viewers entered the theater already knowing what is to be revealed. By telling the story from the housemaid's point of view, the most dramatic scene of the story has to happen off-stage. This robs the film of most of the story's dramatic impact. The pay-off scene is postponed until much later in the story. When we do see it, the good news is that it is done in a totally original manner, like no way it has been done before in any screen adaptation. The bad news is that nobody in their right mind would have wanted to do it this way. The way it is done adds very greatly to the implausibility of the story. It may well be the worst touch in the film. George Fenton wrote a score as downbeat as the sunless visuals with occasional touches on the strings very reminiscent of Bernard Herrmann. Curiously, this film played in the same theater opposite MUPPET TREASURE ISLAND. Stevenson is not having a very good year. I may not be either. I give this a -1 on the -4 to +4 scale. Mark R. Leeper mark.leeper@att.com From rec.arts.sf.reviews Wed Feb 28 11:23:15 1996 Path: news.ifm.liu.se!news.lejonet.se!newsfeed.tip.net!news.josnet.se!dos.canit.se!seunet!mn7.swip.net!mn6.swip.net!plug.news.pipex.net!pipex!weld.news.pipex.net!pipex!tank.news.pipex.net!pipex!newsfeed.internetmci.com!chi-news.cic.net!news.midplains.net!gw2.att.com!nntphub.cb.att.com!not-for-mail From: legeros@nando.net (Michael J. Legeros) Newsgroups: rec.arts.movies.reviews,rec.arts.sf.reviews Subject: REVIEW: MARY REILLY Followup-To: rec.arts.movies.current-films,rec.arts.sf.movies Date: 27 Feb 1996 15:19:04 GMT Organization: none Lines: 64 Sender: ecl@mtgpfs2.att.com (Evelyn C. Leeper) Approved: ecl@mtgpfs2.att.com Message-ID: <4gv7d8$5i3@nntpb.cb.att.com> Reply-To: legeros@nando.net (Michael J. Legeros) NNTP-Posting-Host: mtgpfs2-bgate.mt.att.com Summary: r.a.m.r. #04782 Keywords: author=Legeros Originator: ecl@mtgpfs2 Xref: news.ifm.liu.se rec.arts.movies.reviews:4014 rec.arts.sf.reviews:904 MARY REILLY A film review by Michael John Legeros Copyright 1996 Michael John Legeros (Tri Star) Directed by Stephen Frears Written by Christopher Hampton, from the novel by Valerie Martin Cast Julia Roberts, John Malkovich, Michael Gambon, Glenn Close MPAA Rating "R" Running Time 118 minutes Reviewed at Six Forks Station Cinemas, Raleigh, NC (21FEB96) == The swooping shots across darkened rooftops suggest a very Tim Burton movie, but, alas, no caped crusader descends to save *this* film. Instead, it's a skeletal housemaid (Julia Roberts) who must bear witness to this unfortunate retelling of "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde." For a few, fleeting, maddening moments, director Stephen Frears (DANGEROUS LIAISONS) gets everything just right-- the tone, the colors, the characters; all the ingredients to make a most-powerful potion out of Valerie Martin's best-selling novel. Yet it fizzles too quickly; the volatile mixture losing potency from the very first scene. Casting is a large part of the problem. The story all but collap- ses around Ms. Roberts-- she doesn't have the range for this kind of drama. Her accent also comes and goes, though it's nowhere near as glaring as the total lack of chemistry between her and co-star John Malkovich. (He looks the same in both of his roles-- an incredible fact that's missed by everyone in the story!) The very British supporting cast-- including Michael Gambon and George Cole-- gives credibility to the smaller parts. Glenn Close also appears as a Madam that the Good Doctor calls upon. Her performance is as close to intentional camp as the movie ever gets and-- as a bonus-- offers a likely peek at her upcoming Cruella De Ville in the live-action 101 DALMANTIONS. The biggest botch in MARY REILLY is suspense: there is none. No terror, no tension; nothing. Without any weight, wit, or wonder to propel the story, the viewer is left with little more to do than pay attention to the period detail, a few buckets of blood, and Stuart Craig's fabulously dreary production design. All of which gets old after about an hour, at which point I recommend leaving. (The pacing in the second-half is especially abominable. If you *do* stick it through, your sole reward is a half-hokey special effect depicting the infamous transformation.) Mr. Frears reportedly recut his film several times, missing several release dates in the process. (Obviously, no one advised him to throw up his hands and just turn the whole damned thing over to Mel Brooks. Blucher!) MARY REILLY is the second Robert Louis Stevenson story of the month, after MUPPET TREASURE ISLAND. Perhaps Mr. Frears should consult with Brian Henson on future projects. I daresay that even Ms. Piggy is a better choice for a certain roles than Julia Roberts. And she does have a great chop! Grade: D- -- Mike Legeros - Raleigh, NC legeros@nando.net (h) - legeros@unx.sas.com (w) MOVIE HELL is on the Web! From rec.arts.sf.reviews Tue Mar 12 11:26:26 1996 Path: news.ifm.liu.se!news.lejonet.se!newsfeed.tip.net!news.jos.net!dos.canit.se!seunet!mn7.swip.net!mn6.swip.net!news00.sunet.se!sunic!news99.sunet.se!nntp-trd.UNINETT.no!nntp.uio.no!solace!paladin.american.edu!zombie.ncsc.mil!nntp.coast.net!lll-winken.llnl.gov!fnnews.fnal.gov!gw1.att.com!nntphub.cb.att.com!not-for-mail From: rhodes_steve@tandem.com (Steve Rhodes) Newsgroups: rec.arts.movies.reviews,rec.arts.sf.reviews Subject: REVIEW: MARY REILLY Followup-To: rec.arts.movies.current-films,rec.arts.sf.movies Date: 7 Mar 1996 18:33:43 GMT Organization: Tandem Computers, Inc. Lines: 94 Sender: ecl@mtgpfs2.att.com (Evelyn C. Leeper) Approved: ecl@mtgpfs2.att.com Message-ID: <4hna67$ebu@nntpb.cb.att.com> Reply-To: rhodes_steve@tandem.com (Steve Rhodes) NNTP-Posting-Host: mtcts2.mt.att.com Summary: r.a.m.r. #04835 Keywords: author=Rhodes Originator: ecl@mtcts2 Xref: news.ifm.liu.se rec.arts.movies.reviews:4066 rec.arts.sf.reviews:908 MARY REILLY A film review by Steve Rhodes Copyright 1996 Steve Rhodes RATING (0 TO ****): 1/2 Although MARY REILLY is being billed as a remake of the Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde story, I believe it is actually a remake of MY FAIR LADY. Off screen we have the director (Stephen Frears) playing the Professor Higgins role and the producers (Norma Heyman, Nancy Graham Tanen, and Ned Tanen) playing Colonel Pickering. I can easily imagine Professor Higgins bolding proclaiming that he could take a famous story full of action and imagination, populate it with megastars, turn it into a colossal bore and yet so stun the audience with his audacity that no one would leave. Everyone would know the story and the stars so they would wait until the last moment to realize that he had transformed a prince of a movie into a guttersnipe and that nothing of interest was ever going to happen in the film. As the audience leaves dazed and bewildered, Colonel Pickering must have been singing, "You've done it, you've done it, I can't believe you've done it." The MARY REILLY on the screen is a remake of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde told from the view of a maid named Mary Reilly (Julia Roberts). The brilliant actor John Malkovich is Dr. Jekyll as well as his alter ego Mr. Hyde. The only other important part in the movie is Glenn Close badly miscast as the madam of the local bordello where Mr. Hyde gets into trouble. The movie starts off promisingly enough with realistic gas and candle lit photography (Philippe Rousselot). This, however, rapidly degenerates into a movie so dark and with such low contrast that your eyes, when you can keep them awake, will literally hurt from squinting so much trying to make out the action, or usually lack thereof, on the screen. The movie is filmed in Edinburgh, but it is so dark, you'd never know it. At the thirty minute point, almost nothing had happened save an ineffective flashback to an abusive period in Mary's childhood. Most of the time, during this and all parts of the movie, is devoted to atmospheric scenes of one cast member or another slowly walking through rooms where little happens. It is hard to believe that this movie shares the same lineage with the numerous other Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde pictures. The screenwriter (Christopher Hampton) is at a loss at how to engage the audience. In a failed attempt to solve this problem he comes up with lots of gratuitous violence and major amounts of human and animal blood. In a typical scene, there is a disemboweled rat laying on a bed in a room with blood splattered everywhere. In another, we have a medical operation complete with hacksaw. Actually, my distaste for the movie comes not from disliking these scenes, but from being put to sleep by the boredom of the show. In the more minor complain department, when Dr. Jekyll becomes Mr. Hyde, I did not buy his short curly hair getting longer and straight and his goatee disappearing, and I certainly did not buy the transformation scene lifted straight out of ALIEN. For some reason Dr. Jekyll looks a lot like Ethan Hawke in BEFORE SUNRISE. In Christopher Hampton's MARY REILLY, Dr. Jekyll is a meek and melancholic man, and Mr. Hyde is a handsome and self-assured playboy. Sure. The sparse sets (Stuart Craig) provided nothing of visual interest to engage the viewer. The acting by the three great stars is an embarrassment. Glenn Close has no idea of what to do with her role and plays it like a stone. Julia Roberts seems to think that so long as she is made up to appear unattractive, and she grimaces a lot, she has achieved great art. Last, and certainly least, is John Malkovich's disappointing performance. I would list him close to the top of the best actors working today. In good shows and bad, I have been nothing less than in awe of his work until now. Somehow, Professor Higgins, I mean Stephen Frears manages to get an uninteresting performance out of Malkovich. This is a miracle I did not think possible. MARY REILLY runs way too long at 1:58 thanks to an editor (Lesley Walker) asleep at the editing table. Many scenes of no interest in the less are left in the final cut. Although there is no sex, nudity, or bad language, there is so much gore that the movie is correctly rated R. Although it might bore them to death, I do not think the movie would be bad for teenagers. On the other hand, I had trouble staying awake, and I wish I would have walked out so I do not recommend this extremely s-l-o-w film to anyone. Rent any of the previous versions instead. I give the movie 1/2 of a * only because I've seen worse. ______________________________________________________________________ **** = One of the top few films of this or any year. A must see film. *** = Excellent show. Look for it. ** = Average movie. Kind of enjoyable. * = Poor show. Don't waste your money. 0 = One of the worst films of this or any year. Totally unbearable. REVIEW WRITTEN ON: February 23, 1996 Opinions expressed are mine and not meant to reflect my employer's.