THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, February 27, 1996 TAG: 9602270035
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E1 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Movie Review
SOURCE: BY MAL VINCENT, MOVIE CRITIC
LENGTH: Medium: 95 lines
AT ONE POINT, the brassy, evil Mr. Hyde, done up in a long-haired wig that makes him look like a rock star, pushes the mousy maid, Mary Reilly, to recognize that he and the respectable, mild Dr. Henry Jekyll are actually the same person.
``Can't you see who I really am?'' he asks her.
Since the audience has spent more than an hour seeing that they both look and talk like actor John Malkovich, it is something of a mystery why Julia Roberts, who plays the maid, doesn't notice the resemblance.
It's not easy to take one of the more intriguing horror stories of all English literature, a tale of madness and ambiguity, and turn it into a total bore, but the pedigreed creators of ``Mary Reilly'' have managed.
``Mary Reilly'' is undoubtedly the most pretentious and dull of the many adaptations that have been made of Robert Louis Stevenson's 1886 novella ``The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.'' It is based, rather than on the Stevenson original, on a pop novel by Valerie Marten which presents an intriguing premise - the story as seen through the eyes of a woman.
But, after setting the scene for a perplexing psychological journey, the movie takes us nowhere. We have two hours of nothing to do but watch poor Julia Roberts play a doormat who begs to be trod upon. As she plays Mary Reilly, the woman is a mixture of Alice in Wonder land and Nancy Drew - inquisitive and wondering, but incapable of any action.
Reilly, we are told, had a miserable childhood - abused and sexually molested by her drunkard father, who locked her in a closet with rats. There is a hint that she is a masochist after the evil Hyde takes on characteristics to resemble her father - his walk and his mannerisms. There is also a hint that everything would have been all right if only Jekyll, the good man, hadn't been too repressed by Victorian manners to have put the make on her himself.
John Malkovich is assigned the double role of Jekyll and Hyde - parts played before on film by John Barrymore, Frederic March and Spencer Tracy. Malkovich lends an insinuating, erotic hint but he is neither good enough as Jekyll nor evil enough as Hyde to really make a difference.
Set in Edinburgh, Scotland, in the 1880s, the film is obviously shot, almost completely with close-ups, on a soundstage. There are only two shades - gray and black. Fog is everywhere. There are dark shadows from which something might emerge, but doesn't. For a horror film, there are no scares.
(The only burst of color through all this fog are the outlandishly red lips of Glenn Close who plays an evil madam as if she's warming up for her next role: Cruella De Vil in ``101 Dalmations.'' She goes over the top, but, after an hour of sleepwalking, we welcome the action.)
Everything in this film seems to happen off-screen. The changeover of Jekyll and Hyde, the result of a super potent cocktail, takes place elsewhere. Hyde's evil deeds go unseen, except for a scene in which he brutally kicks a child. There is blood and gore everywhere, but all of it is after the fact - bloody rags, dead animals, a slaughterhouse filled with decapitated limbs, a closet filled with rats. The film seems to be saying that the Victorian age itself was the cause of this violence.
In such generalizations, the filmmakers take on bigger themes but churn out a lesser drama.
The surprising thing is that so many respected artists had a hand in this disaster. Director Stephen Frears and playwright Christopher Hampton worked together previously on ``Dangerous Liaisons'' in which both Malkovich and Close appeared. Here, they supply mood and nothing else. Their film is both repetitive and dull.
We can see why the studio has delayed this film's release seven times and there were fights over the ending. The cast was called back to film a new ending. The result is a silly display of special effects with Malkovich breaking out in ``Alien'' and ``Terminator'' boils as Roberts watches - terrified as usual. The scene looks as if it came from another movie.
Ironically, the most repulsive scene involves the death of an eel, who is killed and skinned for dinner. The eel may be a bit part, but it stirs up more audience reaction than either Roberts or Malkovich.
It is clear that only the clout of A-list star Roberts could have gotten this film made. Her star-drawing power, however, is not likely to be enough to persuade customers to sit through this moody dirge.
It's best to wait a week and hope that the upcoming musical stage version, ``Jekyll and Hyde,'' at Chrysler Hall will take a more direct look at this maddening tale.
``Mary Reilly'' is all mood and no substance - a major, big-star disaster. After awhile, you grow tired of even trying to see through all that fog. ILLUSTRATION: Photo
Julia Roberts and John Malkovich...
TRISTAR PICTURES photo
Julia Roberts as Mary finds that the good Dr. Jekyll is somehow the
evil Mr. Hyde.
Graphic
Mal's rating: 1 and one-half star.
by CNB