Rish Outfield's reviews
Every once in a while comes a film, a special film, that tears tyranist and me in separate directions. Urban Legend, Disturbing Behavior, and now, Mary Reilly. Julia Roberts doesn't have many complete failures at the box office, so I knew there was a reason for this one. My explanation, it was immensely pretentious and Victorian (i.e. boring), and Roberts spoke with an accent. Plus it starred the always creepy and unpleasant John Malkovich. I usually like Julia Roberts, despite myself, but I didn't like this film at all. I wanted to go to sleep the whole time it was on, but first I wanted to cross the room and turn it off, not satisfied to simply sleep while it was playing. I found the situation and atmosphere unappealing and the movie overall the opposite of compelling. Everyone is so obsessed with being proper and showing respect, especially since Mary Reilly is of the servant class. John Malkovich's transformation scene (when we finally saw it) was really impressive, but none of the rest of the film will stay with me longer than a week.

The tyranist's thoughts
Honestly, I'm not really a big fan of costume dramas. Once in a while one will come along that strikes my fancy, but those are really pretty rare. Mary Reilly feels so much like a costume drama that it was kind of hard to like at first. But then the horror kicked in.
We all know at least the basics of the Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde story and really it is borderline horror in most retellings. Stevenson's classic is meant less to frighten than to demonstrate. The twist that Valerie Martin put on the story is really very interesting. It almost turns a story of man's struggle between the good and evil inside himself into a romance.
Strange. I don't care for romances.
Julia Roberts was very good in this. Unusually so in my opinion. John Malkovich was as good as ever. The dialogue was nice even if Ms. Roberts accent wasn't quite there. The setting was wonderful and the residence of Dr. Jeckyll was fantastic. Watch for Glenn Close's most disturbing role to date as well.
This came out in the midst of an early Universal monster revival and works better than some of them. I really like these movies and this one is no exception. In fact, I think it improves the original somewhat.