Film
Movie theaters, reviews and showtimes in New York, plus articles, trailers and more
- Home
- Box Office
- Listings
- Trailers
- Features
Bookmark this page- Edition:
Mary Reilly (1996)
Director: Stephen Frears
Movie review
From Time Out Film Guide
Coppola's Dracula, Branagh's Frankenstein, Jordan's Vampire, and now Frears' Jekyll and Hyde. Will these horrors never cease? A more modest failure than the others, this lacks the vaulting artistic hubris to compensate for its over-produced, over-determined inertia. The film, adapted by Christopher Hampton from a novel by Valerie Martin, approaches Stevenson's characters from a new angle: the point of view of a scullery maid in Dr Jekyll's household. Such nifty cultural repackaging sounds intriguing, but comes a cropper as soon as it's apparent that Mary (Roberts) is missing all the action: she cleans up after the murders, watches while Jekyll goes into his lab and Hyde comes out, flirts timidly with both - and that's just the highlights. It's not all bad: cinematographer Philippe Rousselot enshrouds everything in a fine Victorian fog, and George Fenton contributes an atmospheric score, but Frears never seems to get a fix on the material. If her accent is all over the place, it's hardly Roberts' fault that her pale, gaunt Mary seems to have been sampling the doctor's concoctions. Columbia have grafted on a panicky blood-and-thunder climax, with a belated transformation scene, but the film remains obstinately decorous, about as scary as an episode of Upstairs, Downstairs.Author: TCh
Cast & crew
Director: Stephen Frears
Producer: Ned Tanen, Nancy Graham Tanen, Norma Heyman
Cast: Julia Roberts, John Malkovich, Glenn Close, George Cole, Michael Gambon, Michael Sheen, Linda Bassett, Ciaran Hinds, Moya Brady full cast
Genre(s): Horror
Duration: 109 mins
Most popular on this site
Features
To the letter
Forty years later, Costa-Gavras's Z still brims with fury.
Mind over matter
David Cronenberg reflects on a most bizarre body: his own corpus of work.
Fool's gold
Can an Oscar win lead to a cursed career? Here are five stories of postaward professional meltdowns.
We are the championed
Terrorists and teens abound in this year's "Film Comment Selects."
A history of violence
Matteo Garrone's kaleidoscopic Gomorrah wallops you with Italy's crime crisis.
True romantic
James Gray exchanges urban amorality for amour in Two Lovers.
Playing in the dark
MoMA salutes pianist Stuart Oderman's 50 years as the one-man sound of silents.
Junk bonds
Cast and crew recall the making of the classic NYC drug drama The Panic in Needle Park.
What do you think?
Post your review now