1/2 Mary Reilly
After watching this movie, I was overwhelmed with a sense of depression. The movie is depressing and dark, but is filmed in a way that makes it seem normal. There is fog everywhere and no color anywhere, except for the dark red blood. But that's not what depressed me. I didn't really like the film, but I was fascinated with it. The Jekyll and Hyde story is famous, but I never read it. Watching this movie, which puts it in a different point of view, I don't think I want to read the book. It's dark and broody, but has a tone that disturbed me.
Mary Reilly (Julia Roberts) is the main character of this movie, instead of Dr. Jekyll (John Malkovich). The movie is seen through her eyes. She is uneducated yet likes to read, curious but not nosy. So why make a movie like this? I'm not sure, because it didn't do well at the box-office. Maybe it's because the producers wanted to retell the story in a way that has never been told before. Mary Reilly is a simple maid, who has a hidden past that Jekyll is very interested in. He asks her about the scars on her arms and neck, but she doesn't want to tell him. This makes him even more curious. After he finds out, he realizes that she might not fear him because of what he has become.
What he has become is two things: Mr. Hyde, who is the evil side of Jekyll, and her father. Mr. Hyde actually represents the bad side in everyone. Jekyll drank a potion that released him. Reilly's father drank alcohol which released his evil side. When her father was drunk, he would beat her and put her in a small closet with rats. She ran away from home one day but was still emotionally disturbed from her father.
This is all pretty interesting, but somehow it was too dark for my tastes. I like Gothic-type movies (Batman Returns), but I found myself straining to see what was going on. Some scenes were too dark and I guess they were supposed to be filmed like that, but at least let us see the actors' faces. The only thing that saved this movie was Malkovich and the story. I didn't think Roberts was right for the role, because I love Roberts when she is cheerful and smiling. She didn't smile once in this whole movie. Glenn Close also saved the movie, but she was killed off and didn't have much of a part anyway.
Malkovich portrayed both characters equally well, though Jekyll seemed more right for him. The only thing that differentiated the two was facial hair. But he made the Jekyll character more caring and nice, while the Hyde character was mean and selfish. But the plot of the movie helped nicely. It allowed Hyde to be mysterious because we didn't see it from his point of view (I didn't read the book and I'm not sure who's point of view it was originally seen from). We saw it from someone who had faults of her own and had to deal with them.
Mary Reilly is rated R. The Gothic scenes are dark and eerie, and there is a lot of violence and gore. One terrifying scene is subtle, but sickening, in which the cook skins an eel. There are many scenes like this, including one where a rat has its intestines lying next to it. This is definately not for children, but may interest the type of person who likes this kind of movie. I guess I'm not that type.