Mary Reilly

1996 "The untold story of Jekyll and Hyde"
5.8| 1h44m| R| en| More Info
Released: 23 February 1996 Released
Producted By: TriStar Pictures
Country: United States of America
Budget: 0
Revenue: 0
Official Website:
Synopsis

A housemaid falls in love with Dr. Jekyll and his darkly mysterious counterpart, Mr. Hyde.

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Reviews

Wordiezett So much average
ChanBot i must have seen a different film!!
Konterr Brilliant and touching
Keeley Coleman The thing I enjoyed most about the film is the fact that it doesn't shy away from being a super-sized-cliche;
Jimmy Collins I initially came across this film when I found out it was at one stage planned to be a Winona Ryder/Tim Burton vehicle, and I have to sat I was so impressed by it that it is now one of my favorite films.With a bit of research I got the idea that this was a bad stage in Julias career, but I have to say I have never seen her better than she is in this. Her performance is just astounding, she has thus innocence and vulnerability that I never thought I'd see coming from her, she embodies the character extremely well, so well that it would have been a crime to see anyone else in the role. John Malkovich ramps up the creepy factor in this movie, his performance is also just stellar, he is truly terrifying in the scenes where he is Jekyll.Another thing I like is that this is such a great retelling of the Jekyll/ Hyde story, it's the best one I've ever seen, I think one big advantage it has is that its told from an onlookers perspective and not from an unknown or first person perspective.The cinematography is wonderful, the constant shade of grey and the overlying layer of fog both help to create the dark and moody atmosphere. I think it's definitely a movie fans of the story would enjoy and also people who aren't so familiar with it.Top notch Gothic horror that deserves to be seen....
MBunge This film tells the story of the chambermaid who worked for Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Thankfully, this turgid mess bombed at the box office so we were spared sequels about Dracula's chauffeur, Frankenstein's tax attorney and the Wolfman's proctologist.Mary Reilly (Julia Roberts) works as a maid for Dr. Henry Jekyll (John Malkovich) in 19th century London. I kid you not when I state that this movie essentially follows Mary around while she does her household chores and every so often we get a scene that peeks in on the classic tale of Jekyll and Hyde. If you don't know what that story's about, go down to the damn library and check out the book or watch one of the 37,000,000,000 other versions of the tale that have been committed to film. Basically, this thing is a Cliff's Notes version of Jekyll and Hyde, crossed with a documentary on the brutal drudgery of 19th century working class Britons, mixed with a Lifetime movie about a woman overcoming her memories of fatherly abuse.The heart of Mary Reilly is supposed to be about the attraction Mary feels for both Jekyll and Hyde and the affection they feel in return. A big problem is that it's hard to believe any man being lovestruck by this pale-faced woman with Conan O'Brien eyebrows. Julia Roberts is deliberately stripped of most of the beauty artifice that props up her appearance in other films and the audience is undeniably confronted with the fact that Roberts is not that pretty. She has very distinct features that need to be accommodated on screen and that doesn't happen here.Another defining negative about this film is very poor acting jobs by three big stars. Roberts intermittently adopts an Irish accent that rivals Kevin Costner's dialect in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves for its "now you hear it, now you don't" quality. John Malkovich does worse than sleepwalk through his double role, even giving Edward Hyde an extremely pronounced limp early in the film which completely disappears later on. Either Malkovich and director Stephen Frears both forgot about the limp or Malkovich just got tired of doing it and Frears couldn't make him. Glenn Close is almost as bad as the owner of a London brothel. Her entire performance consists of giving her character an Elvis lip curl.The bottom line is that Mary Reilly is a movie about an uninteresting woman who stands still while an amazing story happens around her. The idea of telling a famous tale from the perspective of a minor character isn't a bad one. A movie about the London cop trying to track down and capture Edward Hyde sounds good to me. The trick is the minor character actually has to do something important in the story. Mary Reilly simply hovers and watches like the boring person on a reality show.Unless you're dying to view YET ANOTHER crappy adaptation of Jekyll and Hyde, skip this film.
T Y I believe it was Ray Pride who wrote the classic line "Mary Reilly is like a painting... only slower." Yeah, the pacing is not good. Yeah, Julia Roberts is a slight problem. But there are three more massive problems with the movie.1) Viewpoint - Telling the story of Hamlet through the eyes of Rosencranz and Gildenstern? Sounds promising! Telling the story of Oz through the eyes of the Wicked Witch? Could be interesting! Telling the story of Dr Jekyll (y'know? ...the exciting character!!) through an extremely uninteresting servant too timid to have a viewpoint? Um, no. No very much. No times a hundred. This device holds no potential.2) Malkovich - Characters in the movie are supposed to believe Malkovich is two people. But this guy can't be bothered to develop one role in a normal movie, let alone two characters here; horrible, horrible piece of casting! He gives the same contemptuous, bland, disinterested, passive-aggressive performance he's been overpaid for, for twenty years. He fails to modulate anything an actor has under his control, generating tedium on screen, and ennui in viewers.3) Familiarity - We know this story. If you haven't found a way to embroider it, you can't just prolong its only revelation (duality) for an hour and a half. Because it makes the characters seem severely dull-witted. No one has two identical-looking antagonists in their life who are never seen at the same time. Every moment is the same as the next.There's a belated spfx ending which is wildly out of place, and feels like the 25th attempt to save a movie. The combined talents of the three (Roberts, Malkovich & Frears) did not produce sparks, excitement or even a feeble puff of smoke.
Michelle Pitter I was surprised to see Julia Roberts in what looked to be such a dark film but she played her role so well I really did feel like I was feeling everything she felt. John Malkovich as always played both Jekyll and Hyde with the passion and intensity that i have come to expect from him.I'm not much for period dramas but I have to admit that it was done so brilliantly and didn't feel stuffy and controlled like a lot of other period films I have tried watching. The story of Jekyll and Hide and it has been done in other films but this is one of the best I have seen. The film had a lot more feeling to it but was very subtle and made me think a lot of things through. The film has a slow pace compared to some but this isn't such a bad thing, it definitely didn't feel drawn out, it seemed to have enough time to venture down all the paths it needed including the death of Mary's mother.The film is classed partly as horror but the only part of the film which was scary to see was the scene where Mary witnesses Hde become Jekyll for the first and last time. The special effects were a little out there compared to the rest of the film, it was almost like someone put a microwave in Dr Jekyll's Victorian kitchen. It would have been better to see there faces gently merge from one character to the other.Other than that all I have to say is this is a brilliant film. Totally unexpected and charming in lots of ways.