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!
The review above was posted to the
rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the
review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright
belongs to the author.
Please direct comments/criticisms of the review to relevant newsgroups.
Broken URLs inthe reviews are the responsibility of the author.
The formatting of the review is likely to differ from the original due
to ASCII to HTML conversion.
Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews