Let me say, though, that this is a dark drama, and I am partial to dark, atmospheric dramas. Since I favor that genre, I went into Mary Reilly expecting several things, primarily a good, if somewhat slow, story, atmosphere, good acting, and a bad accent from Julia Roberts. I wasn't totally correct, but I wasn't totally disappointed.

Mary Reilly is the story of Dr. Henry Jekyll's Irish maid. While performing her duties in Jeckyll's house, she witnesses strange nocturnal happenings--crashes, crying, and gutteral howls--coming from Jekyll's laboratory. Reilly slowly makes her way into Dr. Jekyll's confidence, but curiosity isn't her only motive -- she has feelings for the doctor.

Soon, Dr. Jekyll gains a new "assistant" by the name of Mr. Hyde. Hyde is at first seen by none of the servants, but when he surfaces, they find that he bears a strange resemblance to Dr. Jekyll. Some of the servants theorize that the young-looking Hyde is Jekyll's illegitimate son. Mary Reilly, however, has a feeling that the brash Mr. Hyde is perhaps more than he seems.

The story of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde has become a part of our culture. It has taken its place among the pantheon of monster stories, seated comfortably next to stories of Dracula and Frankenstein. Mary Reilly, however, takes a different approach to the well-known story. The movie turns the formula on its ear by focusing not on Dr. Jekyll, but rather on Mary Reilly, a character that would have been in the original story's periphery. It is an interesting approach that works well. The result is that this is not a horror story, but rather a tragic drama, almost a dark love story.

After having seen several weeks' worth of commercials for this movie, I had been apprehensive about Julia Roberts' accent. I was happy to see that the strongest examples of the accent in the movie were also the scenes shown in the commercials. In her role, Roberts is very soft-spoken. Her accent barely surfaces at all--it's just a light touch of an Irish brogue. Although it is very likely that the movie was shot out of sequence, Roberts seems to work her way into the character as the movie goes on. In the beginning, she seems uncomfortable wearing the skin of a 19th century English maid. However, as the movie progresses, she becomes more and more Mary Reilly and less and less every other character she's played. This role is an ambitious one for Roberts, and she performs it well. Not spectacularly, but well.

Malkovich, on the other hand, gives a performace of quiet excellence. Instead of making Hyde into a total mystery, Malkovich makes it clear that he is merely another part of Jekyll--the id to Jekyll's ego--a dashing young man, unconstrained by societal expectations. The reckless and murderous Hyde is a direct contrast to the troubled and sickly Jekyll. That Malkovich plays both equally well is remarkable.

The director, Stephen Frears, is almost up to the task of directing this movie. He gives us a couple of inventive shots, a couple of good frights, and lots (and lots) of fog. In the beginning of the movie, he uses symmetry and mirrors to give us plenty of hints of what's to come. Very rarely is there one light on a table; there are always two, symmetrically placed. If he's lucky enough to get a window in the shot, we see another two lights in the reflection. That kind of stuff is great -- Kubrick used it to great effect in The Shining. Frears seems to like it too, but he practically runs out of ideas before the movie is half over. As soon as Hyde shows himself to Mary, Frears lets much of the movie's mystery drop from his direction. Yes, we know Jekyll and Hyde are one and the same. But Mary doesn't--Frears seems to have forgotten this.

The main problem with Mary Reilly is . . . well . . . I really don't know. There's just something vaguely wrong with it. For one thing, although the movie clocks in at slightly less than two hours, the pace is slow. I didn't mind at all, but others might. Another part of Mary Reilly that seems vaguely out of place is the ending. Although it makes sense, the ending's simplicity is unsettling. The suddenness with which this anti-climax appears is unsettling as well.

To be honest, of all the movies I've seen, this movie was the most difficult to review. There were many very good aspects to it (Malkovich, the treatment of Jekyll) and many things that weren't so good (like I said, I can't put my finger on it). Mary Reilly is, in essence, an artistic film that was mistakenly mass-marketed. Just like Jekyll and Hyde, the movie wants to be ambitious and complacent at the same time. It worked for him, it doesn't quite work for the movie. (1996/Nov 13, 1999)