I am currently about 20 minutes in to this movie and have two things to say:
1.) So far I don't get the dismal reviews? I like it. I mean, it is ultra depressing and gray and kind of creepy, but I like it. Julia Roberts' accent not so much, but everything else is alright by me so far, except...
2.) The flashback scene with the rat. At the first squeak I literally jumped out of my bed in horror and flung the lamp on like it was really happening. I often watch movies in bed on my laptop, so I was lying down and extremely calm. Totally wasn't expecting a rat in a bag. It creeped me out so bad. I'm a cat person for many reasons, but one major thing I love about cats is that they are little predators and they kill/attempt to kill things that scare me.
Ok, back to the movie. Plot seems plain enough - some kind of modified Jekyll and Hyde story. More from the point of view of, and about the experience of...well, Mary Reilly. The only opinion I have of Jekyll and Hyde has to do with a haunted house I was dragged to as a child. All I remember is a part with the doctor, he drinks a potion, and changes, and he leapt out at everyone touring the haunted house. Scared the hell out of me. This has nothing to do with the movie, I just thought I'd share.
Mary Reilly works as a servant for Dr. Jekyll. I guess they don't pay her much, because she looks like a ragamuffin. She strikes up a tentative communication with the doctor. She has scars all over her arms and neck, and this intrigues him. He eventually gets her to tell how they happened, which I started to mention above. Her father locked her in a cupboard with a rat in a burlap bag. The rat chewed his way out and then proceeded to bite her repeatedly. Ughhh I can barely type this. Her mother-of-the-year mom comes home to find this has happened, and takes her child away. Not to a safe place necessarily, but to work as a servant or something. Still, I guess child labor is better than hanta virus. So, way to go, Mary Reilly's mom.
Dr. Jekyll listens to this story with the appropriate amount of horror in his facial expression. Because...seriously? Rat in a burlap bag is now in my top 10 most terrifying ways to get a scar, ever.
By the way, I'm watching the rest of this movie with the lamp on.
Jekyll abruptly excuses himself to his laboratory. He pronounces it the fancy way "la-bore-a-tory" not "labratory". I like that. He's upscale.
Mary Reilly is intriguing Dr. Jekyllovich by telling about how her father seemed like 2 people -ooh, foreshadowing! Honey, that's called split personality disorder. He asks her to deliver a letter and asks her some weird questions and she looks at him kinda like he may be crazy.
Oh look, it's Glenn Close. What is with the horrid accents in this movie? She appears to run a brothel. The ladies of the night are looking at Mary Reilly and laughing at her. Probably because she needs some makeup and she has the bangs of a 4 year old.
The letter Mary delivered was one asking if Jekyll's "assistant" can live in the brothel. Why sure. Mary is asking too many damn questions about this assistant. Jekyll is regretting becoming her friend already.
Now Mary is planting the ugliest garden I have ever seen. Seriously. I don't appreciate her effort, that is a mess. Maybe if she wasn't so busy creeping on Mr. Hyde. Sexy, murderous Mr. Hyde.
I'm sure Mary's roommate appreciates having to share not just a room but also a bed with her, while she relives her horrible childhood in her dreams night after night. Seriously, Jekyll? You live on sprawling estate, you can't spring for a bunk bed in the servant's quarters?
Now she's up out of bed snooping and Mr. Hyde is about to come shambling on in.
She just found a receipt marked "blood money". Hee.
Ohh Jesus, she is creeping down to his lab, barefoot. If there is one thing I have learned from suspense films and being alive, it is do NOT go anywhere without shoes besides bed and the beach. Certainly don't go traipsing down to a mad scientist's lab without the appropriate footwear. Conclusion: Mary Reilly is a dumbass.
His lab is a scary place. There are beakers, chains, and some creepy suspension catwalk thing. Now a kid is screaming and Mr. Hyde is handing over a check to...maybe the kid's mother? Ugh. As he begins to come back toward the main house, Matlock Reilly: Supersleuth hauls ass to get out of there but then decides it would be smarter to hide under a table and breathe loud as hell. She's so dumb. I hope he discovers her and KICKS HER IN THE FACE. But he doesn't. He knows she is there and cooly tells her to go home and close the door behind her.
The next morning. He staggers out of the lab and he, too is missing 1/2 of his appropriate footwear. He has a sprained ankle he says. I like how Dr. Jekyll has wavy hair while Mr. Hyde has long flowing, Professor Snape hair. That's how we know they aren't the same guy! Mary attempts to help him up, when Mr. Pool the...groundskeeper or head butler or something, yells at her and tells her to light the bedroom fire. Only I heard "go on and light the bed on fire". This is not the first time I misheard tonight. Earlier in the film, Mary's shitty accent made it sound like she said 'Mr. Poo'. I giggled out loud.Because I'm 9.
Mr. Pool seems to be enjoying undressing Jekyll a little too much. I don't blame him, but still. Mr. Pool yells at Mary because he feels she is overstepping her job as a maid. He even points at her and wags his finger. He means business, ok?
Mary is getting his room ready and Jekyll is lying in his bed looking very pitiful. He has a conversation with her about fears. He asks if she is afraid of herself. Jekyll, stop projecting. I'm afraid of you both right now. She leaves him after he spends a few more moments talking about how poorly he feels, even doing the "sick voice" that everyone in the world does when they want to seem super ill.
Next scene: he wakes Mary up in the middle of the night and says he has something he needs her to do. Oooerr.
He sends her out in the middle of the night, to deliver a letter to the brothel. Because that's safe. Again, Mary is stupid. Even Glenn Close's character hates her, she smacks her into the brothel and yells at her. Turns out she is pissed because Mr. Hyde murdered one of her prostitutes and left a bloody mess all over the room. If you're going to kill your prostitute, at least clean up. There is even the fakest-looking fake blood on the ceiling. And there is a dead rat in the middle of the bed. Nice.
When Mary returns home, Mr. Poo(l) yells at her some more. Then Jekyll yells at her. Mary has full access to Jekyll's library, I think she needs to look at some self-help books. But instead she would rather snoop through his personal things, and now Mr. Hyde is standing right behind her. Aaand here is the whisper "Mary Reilly...." that I remember from the commercials for this movie when I was a kid! I always remembered that whisper, but had no idea what this movie was, or who was in it.
Conclusion #2: Mr. Hyde is sexier than Dr. Jekyll. Except for that whole "murder and dismembering" part. He is reminding me just slightly of Valmont in this scene.
Next morning: Jekyll apologizes for Mr. Hyde being a bit of a dick the night before, and then suggests that Mary and Hyde run an errand together. So they do. Besties!
Later on, Glenn Close shows up and wants to speak to Jekyll. Mary brings her to him and he comes out of his office looking fucking crazy. He is giving her the crazy eyes that I give my daughter when I have had "E-NOUGH!!" Presently Mary hears glass shatter, so she goes in to snoop. Only she's not very good at it, or she would notice Mr. Hyde and a very bloody Glenn Close in the foreground. Um yeah, so the scene just ended. I don't think we will be seeing Glenn Close anymore in this film.
In the morning Mary goes to wake up Jekyll and finds Mr. Hyde instead. He attempts to apologize to her for his behavior, but apologies are his weakness and he instead decides to shatter a teacup with his bare hands. Part of the cup lodges in his palm and he pulls it out with his teeth. Alright, Malkovich. You can do no wrong by me, but that scene made my insides flip in bad way. Judging by how I can see white on the top and bottom of Mary's eyes, I'd say she is pretty freaked out. He wipes blood across her face and she says nothing. He asks "don't you know who I am?" It is kind of a sad scene actually.
Mary's mother dies. Mary goes to collect the body. She is led to where the body is by what appears to be some sort of hobbit. The little bastard has stored her mother in some kind of cupboard. He also sold all her mother's things to make up for unpaid rent. Jerk.
Now Mary is going somewhere in a heavy fog. Here comes Mr. Hyde. Probably up to some shenanigans. He grabs her and they disappear into an alleyway. Police were chasing him and he has blood all over his sleeve. He tells Mary she will never see him again, and then kisses her. Pretty jealous of you, Mary Reilly.
But when she returns home, the police are waiting for her. They interrogate her in front of everyone, and have crime scene evidence on the dining room table. What kind of police force is this? We then learn that Mr. Hyde beat some man to death. The police want to search the lab, and Mary behaves in a way that is totally not suspicious at all.
Then she goes and has a long talk with Jekyll where she finally figures out that he and Mr. Hyde are the same person. Because the fact that they both look and sound just like John Malkovich and were never seen in the same place at once didn't give that one away. When he realizes he has been found out, he runs away lol.
And...here comes Mary's father. He shows up at the mom's funeral. Mary finally grows a pair and walks away from him for good. That's the first time I've almost liked Mary this entire film.
In the morning Mr. Hyde is in the bed instead of Jekyll. And he's in a foul mood. Mary is so stupid that she tells him she's going to "raise the alarm". He stops her for a moment and then she stupidly tries to run out. He tells her the whole story of how he came to be. He probably shouldn't have told her that there is an antidote that makes him go away, because now she's in the lab looking for it. She brought it to him and now Jekyll is back. He is all out of sorts because he has no more antidote. He has locked himself in his lab. Mary walks in the lab and hears bawling, presumably Jekyll. She doesn't bother to find out because she is a terrible friend.
Then she goes to her room and packs all her belongings. Loyalty: you fail at that too, Mary Reilly.
She returns to the lab once more and I can tell something major will happen because of the music. And because there are only 10 minutes left in the film.
She is walking on the creepy suspended catwalk, and the scene is very quiet. Suddenly a hand reaches up and grabs her leg and I jumped a mile for the 2nd time in this film. Awesome. It was Hyde of course, and he is pissed off. Brandishing a knife, breaking glass and everything. Then he calms down because she is petting his face. Okay then. But then he resentfully says "I always knew you'd be the death of us."
Oh my god then there is the grosssssesssst transformation scene of Hyde back to Jekyll. I wasn't expecting that. I actually looked away like I was watching real life. Hyde injected his/their(?) body with antidote mixed with poison. To change back to Jekyll, end the whole thing, and for some reason to spare Mary Reilly even though she doesn't deserve it. Dr. Jekyll dies and it is a quite sad scene. Mary lays with his dead body because she's creepy.
Then she leaves. Presumably to go destroy some other lives.
I actually liked this movie very much. I wasn't sure what to think of Julia Roberts in this sort of role though. Malkovich is good as Jekyll and fantastic as Hyde. I liked the dark and foreboding feeling of this film, spooky soundtrack, and especially that it produced two genuine scares out of me!
