Midnight in Paris

I grew up with stupid comedies.  I love early Steve Martin and Mel Brooks, I can't help enjoying the nonstop barrage of movies like Airplane! or Top Secret!, and I have an unwavering love for the first Ace Ventura, despite the butt-talking.  I blame my dad for exposing my young mind to such perfectly crafted stupidity, but let's be honest --- I probably would have found my way to these movies without his help.  Not surprisingly, I grew up enjoying early Woody Allen films like Sleeper and Bananas, as well.  And, after those...well, there's pretty large gap.  I've never been able to endure the earnest awkwardness of Annie Hall (I think I've started it about six times and never made it more than thirty minutes in).  Someone told me that The Purple Rose of Cairo was amazing --- and it is clever, I'll agree --- but I certainly wasn't prepared for a Woody Allen movie that wasn't peppered with jokes.  Every time Allen releases a film (approximately every 4-8 months, from what I can tell), I always hear comments from Woody's apologists, saying "It's his best movie since ____," but I typically have never felt like watching the referenced movie, much less something with Jason Biggs in it.  Nevertheless, I did break from tradition and see Midnight in Paris.  And, to all the haters of the Woody Allen subgenre out there: the Allen apologists are right on this one.

Gil (Owen Wilson) is on a vacation in Paris with his fiancee, Inez (Rachel McAdams), and it's pretty obvious that they're not a great couple.  On paper, they should work; Gil is a successful Hollywood screenwriter and she...well, I'm not sure if she has a profession, but she appears to be wealthy, pretty and sociable --- a solid pairing for Hollywood brown-nosing.  Gil isn't satisfied, though.  He has taken time off work to write his first novel, and it's not going as well as he would have liked.  He's hoping to be inspired by the city of Paris, where so many of his idols lived and loved in the 1920s; Inez just hopes he will snap out of it so they can move to Malibu.  But no, Gil wants to drink in the romance of the city.  As luck would have it, the pair accidentally encounter some of Inez's friends, Paul (Michael Sheen) and Carol (Nina Arianda), and Gil's romantic Paris getaway becomes a group tour, where Paul narrates the history and meaning of everything they see.  Paul's knowledge and accuracy are questionable at best, but Carol and Inez fawn over him.  Annoyed by Paul's powerfully distilled blowhard-edness, Gil decides to spend some time on his own in Paris.

"And here's to you shutting the hell up"

He finds himself alone and drunk in an alley when the clock strikes midnight.  A car pulls up to the curb and the occupants invite him inside.  Being drunk, Gil doesn't notice how odd everyone is dressed until he finds himself at a party, introduced to Zelda (Alison Pill) and Scott (Tom Hiddleston) , arguably the poster boy for romantic writers obsessed with Paris.  And they are exactly as he always imagined they would be!

Specifically, Gil imagined they would be also play  Sex Bob-omb's drummer and Loki

Following the Fitzgeralds to another party, Gil meets and befriends Ernest Hemingway (Corey Stoll), who agrees to take Gil's novel to Gertrude Stein for an opinion.  But when he leaves the bar, he has returned to the present day.  If you were faced with a present where you feel unaccomplished and unhappy, and a "golden age" where you can interact with your idols, which would you pick?  Understandably, Gil starts living for the time he can spend in the past.  That's not particularly healthy, though.

Worst breakup speech ever: "I'm from the future..."

First things first, I must admit that I've never been to Paris, so I don't know how accurately Woody Allen is portraying the city.  I will say that Midnight in Paris does a good job capturing the romantic and exciting allure of the city; I don't know how much of that is rooted in reality, anyway.  At this point in his career, Woody Allen has been a legitimate film legend for at least thirty years, so he can fill his cast with just about any actor he wants and use them on an unabashedly nostalgic project.  On so many levels, Midnight in Paris should not work.  Owen Wilson has to be sympathetic, yet flawed, instead of smarmy and slightly more likable than some other jerk, which is his typical range; nostalgia can make for some poignant moments, but there's a fine line between that and quaintness; the story is pining for an age that most audiences have a limited knowledge of (at best) in a city that most audiences have never been.  The fact that Midnight in Paris works --- and is good, to boot --- is nothing short of astounding.

A big reason for this film's success comes from the actors.  I have never liked Owen Wilson much; I can enjoy him in Wes Anderson films, but I find him annoying in everything else.  Here, though, you're not supposed to completely like him --- and I can do that!  This is definitely the most complicated part I have seen Wilson play, and I thought he pulled it off with charm.  The intentionally unlikable characters (Rachel McAdams and her parents, played by Mimi Kennedy and the often kooky Kurt Fuller) were exactly what they were supposed to be; you were never supposed to like them even a little bit, but they were realistic enough to remind you of someone.  I also loved how convincingly Michael Sheen played a confident know-it-all; I think Sheen is underrated in America, but he delivered a lot of good lines in a style that was perfect for a habitual bullshitter.  For me, though, this is a film made by the bit parts.  There are so many actors --- good actors, too --- who had small roles, playing historical parts, and they were all very entertaining.  I'm not an F. Scott Fitzgerald fiend, but I was instantly able to recognize Scott and Zelda in this movie and it felt right to me.  Similarly, I absolutely loved every moment that included Adrien Brody's Salvador Dali impression and Kathy Bates as Gertrude Stein.

I also loved every mention of rhinoceroses

Marion Cotillard was typically lovely, although it is probably difficult to convincingly play a muse; Cotillard's American career continues to mature, as this is yet another atypical leading lady role that she has taken on of late.  Corey Stoll's work as Hemingway was equally impressive; for an actor I had never even heard of to turn in such a bad-ass manly performance was a treat.

Whatever comes out of his mouth can double as a Dos Equis or Old Spice commercial

I also liked Léa Seydoux as the local French gal; it wasn't an especially difficult role, but she was certainly adequate.  There are a few other notable appearances --- Mrs. France, Carla Bruni, has a fairly easy part and Oliver Rabourdin gets to play Gauguin --- but nothing as scene-stealing as what I've already mentioned.

With so many good acting performances, it should not be surprising that I liked Woody Allen's direction.  When he has a good script, Allen can coax out some remarkable performances from actors that typically get out-acted by Jackie Chan.

"To be fair, that was only twice..."

The whole film was extremely clever, and Allen took full advantage by laying visual breadcrumbs for the audience to pick up (or overlook), with regards to certain subplots.  Of course, since Allen directed Midnight in Paris, that means he also wrote it, so that whole "clever" thing goes double here.  I have a passing knowledge of Paris and its expatriates in the 1920s and even some knowledge of the Moulin Rouge-era; I certainly did not catch or appreciate every reference Allen includes in his script and direction, but I knew enough to be impressed by what I understood.  Even if you are oblivious to Gil's "golden age," this is still a very entertaining film; the characters are vibrant and strange and generally enjoyable.  More important than any of that, though, is the overall message.  In a year when so many movies (Hugo, The Artist, Super 8, etc.) have bent over backwards to give the glorious past a friendly handjob, Woody Allen (who has had his share of nostalgic flicks) made a movie that acknowledges that impulse, but then turns that into a forward-facing vision.  I found that incredibly refreshing and that's part of why this film left me with a silly grin on my face.

It is easy to enter into Midnight in Paris with some misconceptions.  It has elements of a romantic comedy; it could have slapstick humor in it, given the writer/director and cast; it could be a snooty Francophilic tribute; it could be yet another underwhelming film from an aging talent.  If you like France or French things, I think you will love this movie.  If you don't give a rat's ass about France, you will probably find it amusingly clever.  If you wish they had never changed the name back from American Fries, then you probably can't read, anyway.  This is easily one of the most well-written movies of 2011 and a welcome reminder of just how good Woody Allen can be.

Unthinkable

With a title like Unthinkable, you have to ask yourself exactly what would be "unthinkable?"  That's right...the title makes you think about what would be unthinkable.  Is that a sign of a clever movie, or just a stupid one?  I'm not going to answer that question for you, and neither is this movie.

Yusuf (Michael Sheen), formerly known as Steven Younger, sent a homemade recording to government agencies, where he announced that he has hidden three identical nuclear bombs in three American cities and they will explode in just over six days, unless his demands are met; he will issue the demands soon.  What follows is an examination of the usefulness of, and the government's right to, torture suspects in extreme cases.  On the torture-is-bad side, we have FBI Agent Helen Brody (Carrie-Anne Moss) and her team, who investigate the hundreds of (usually useless) tips from citizens regarding possible terrorists on American soil.  In the middle are the suits, the higher-ups that want plausible deniability in case any torture is made public, but also want results at any cost.  On the torture-is-effective side, we have Jack Bauer a man called H (Samuel L. Jackson).  H doesn't legally exist because he is an expert in effective torture.  But his torture is well beyond waterboarding and the like.  Within a minute of entering the interrogation room, he cuts off Yusuf's pinkie fingertip, without even asking a question.  That is as nice as H gets, and he will never be that pleasant again.  I don't have much positive to say about this movie, but I will admit that H's methods were occasionally shocking and, dare I say, unthinkable.  The film goes on to ask a great many questions.  Is it ever okay to torture?  What are the limits to torture?  Can good people allow torture?  Torture torture torture torture?  You get the idea.

I am normally a fan of Samuel L. Jackson in just about anything, but this is the most cartoony effort I have seen from him.  And I don't appreciate the man for his subtle acting skills.

Case in point.

I think my problem is that his character is a mean SOB and the smartest man in the room.  He's thinking at least two steps ahead of all the other good guys, so when he does something awful, like castrating Yusuf, it builds to something important ten minutes later.  What's bad about that?  He sounds like Batman!  Well, the problem is that the film doesn't support his actions; this movie balances both sides of the torture issue and H is often seen as a bad man.  That's just mixed messages, folks.  Having Carrie-Anne Moss and her pseudo-emoting doesn't help the human rights side, unfortunately.  She frets and she hovers, but she is nowhere near strong enough a character to compare with Sam Jackson when he's cutting off fingertips.  Michael Sheen does a decent job, but his acting style (at least, when he's not playing a werewolf) is too subtle to compete with Sam Jackson.  There is a surprising number of recognizable actors in supporting roles here (Brandon Routh, Gil Bellows, Martin Donovan, Benito Martinez, Stephen Root, and Holmes Osbourne), but they are given absolutely no screen time or character development.  Director Gregor Jordan gets the point across that there is no consensus on the torture debate, but that is about all he accomplishes.

What makes this movie underwhelming is the sheer number of moments that made me ask, "Really?" aloud.  In an absolutely irrelevant bit of plot, Agent Brody's team is sent to question every single person they are keeping tabs on, which happens to include H's Islamic wife.  H, being a bad-ass, takes down (but doesn't kill) the first agents that show up at his house; he does bad things for a living, so who knows if those are fake badges, right?  Well, H is then questioned and then the governmental higher-ups have him released, only to return to the movie less than five minutes later as Mr. Interrogator.  What was the point of all that?  Why not just introduce him as the interrogator and cut the rest?  This movie was twenty minutes longer than it needed to be, and it's only 90-some minutes long!  And why did all this happen?  The CIA accidentally sent over a file on H and his family to the FBI --- and that is not a building block for any other plot lines.  It's just, "Oh, the CIA mail boy is stupid, finds confidential files, and mails them to random government agencies."

The worst part of the whole movie is the ending.  SPOILER ALERT, IN CASE YOU STILL WANT TO SEE THIS CRAPPY MOVIE.  All along, it has been said that Yusuf stole between 15 and 18 pounds of fissionable bomb-making-stuff.  All along, it has been said that each of his three bombs has 4.5 pounds of the fissionable stuff in it.  If you do the math, that adds up to 13.5 pounds of danger fuel, which implies that there is a fourth bomb somewhere.  I figured that out on my own, about a third of the way through the movie, but H is the only character that figured it out, and he doesn't mention it until the last few minutes.  So, maybe it's a twist.  That could be, but Yusuf manages to commit suicide before the fourth bomb is proved or disproved, and the movie ends moments later, with Agent Brody taking Yusuf's children out of whatever building all this took place in.  Fade to black, roll credits, and forget that there was a twist only three minutes earlier, where a nuclear weapon was left unaccounted for.  I have to admit, this is the first time I have seen a movie where the heroes are looking for a nuke, don't find it, and then the movie ends.  Normally, I would call that sort of plot development moronic, but in this case I'll call it unthinkable.

Alice In Wonderland (2010)

Tim Burton is one of my favorite directors, because he makes odd little films that somehow manage to become big hits.  I tend to prefer his more intimate work (Edward Scissorhands, Ed Wood, Big Fish) over his obvious blockbusters (Batman, Planet of the Apes), but I always find his work interesting.  When you add my favorite actor and Burton collaborator, Johnny Depp, to the mix, you definitely have my attention.  Add those two oddballs to the fictional world of Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland, and you have a guaranteed formula for weirdness.

It should be pointed out that, despite the title, this actually isn't an adaptation or re-imagining of the source material, or even of the Disney animated classic.  Instead, it serves as a sequel of sorts.  This time around, Alice (Mia Wasikowska) is a teenager instead of a child.  Like all Wonderland stories, this one begins in the real world.  Alice is attending a party when she fields an unexpected (and unwanted) proposal for marriage; she is at the marrying age for Victorian England, and the match is sensible and proper.  And, in typical Tim Burton style, "sensible and proper" seem positively horrid, with madness being a preferable alternative.  Almost as if she is signaling for a rodeo clown to distract the bull away from her, Alice notices a white rabbit wearing a waistcoat.  Since her options are follow the rabbit or definitively choose a life path, the nineteen year-old Alice opts to follow the rabbit.  From here, things begin to get a little deja vu; Alice visits all the same places and meets all the same characters that she did in the original stories --- she eats stuff and grows/shrinks, she chases the White Rabbit (voiced by Michael Sheen), she goes to the Mad Hatter's (Johnny Depp) tea party, and gets confused by the Cheshire Cat (voiced by Stephen Fry) and the Caterpillar (voiced by Alan Rickman).  Alice seems to be going through these experiences for the first time, but something seems...different about everything.  The only clue we have that this is a new tale is the fact that all the the inhabitants of Underland (not Wonderland) remember an Alice from years ago.  It has even been prophesied that Alice will be the one to kill the Red Queen's (Helena Bonham Carter) fearsome dragon, the Jabberwocky (voiced by Christopher Lee).  Alice is supposed to kill a creature of Wonderland?  Well, that's different.  And, as this film insists, this really isn't Wonderland, but Underland.  What's the difference?  While both are filled with imaginative landscapes and characters, Underland is the nightmarish twin to the world of Wonderland; apparently, things were once shiny and happy, when the White Queen (Anne Hathaway) ruled, but things have gotten darker and more serious under the Red Queen's reign.  But is this Alice the Alice of the prophesy?  Or is this all something else, something darker?

Not too long ago, I read Lewis Carroll's works for the first time.  Frankly, I was underwhelmed.  I will admit to an unusual joy of language present in these stories, and some pretty interesting imagery, but I wasn't impressed on the whole.  In all honesty, I think that these stories are excellent launching points for adventures, but I am happy to see that most adaptations to the stories aren't slavishly devoted to the source material.  Obviously, then, I have no problem with Burton's Underland.  I do have a problem with the title, though.  I've said it before, and I'll say it again, I think that film titles are important indicators of the film's content; if I pop in a DVD titled Bambi, it had better be an animated deer story, and not a live-action bestiality flick.  Titling this Alice in Wonderland seems disingenuous to me, because the films goes to great lengths to differentiate itself from previous movie incarnations and the source material.  Alice in Underland would have been more appropriate, I think, and still drawn the connection to Wonderland.

The first thing that struck me about this film was its appearance.  Visually, this is a fantastic piece of moviemaking.  The environment, even though it is almost a post-apocalyptic version of Wonderland, is still full of color and detail.  The character designs were astounding, so different from the classic versions of the characters, and yet they all had something iconic that made them seem somehow familiar.  The use of CGI in the film was some of the best I have seen utilized in any motion picture.  Obviously, the environment was largely CGI, but most of the characters had something altered in post-production, some in subtle ways; Crispin Glover, who plays the Red Knave, had everything except his head replaced by CGI.  Tim Burton has always been a visual filmmaker, but this was really a step above anything else I've seen of his.

This film was chock full of recognizable actors, each of whom did a good job.  Many of them stuck to the classic interpretation of their characters, but that's not necessarily a bad thing.  Matt Lucas (Tweedledee and Tweedledum), Michael Sheen, Stephen Fry, and Alan Rickman were the principal actors who followed that practice.  There were several bit parts where I recognized the actor, but not the character.  Timothy Spall played a bloodhound, Michael Gough voiced a dodo bird, Crispin Glover was awkward as ever as the Knave, and Imelda Staunton was one of the talking flowers --- none of these were huge roles, but I found it interesting that such small parts were played by actors I have seen in so many other films.

Now let's talk about the departures from the norm.  For starters, Paul Whitehouse's March Hare had a dangerous edge to him that bordered on sociopathic.  While Christopher Lee's lines as the Jabberwocky fell in line with Carroll's poem, I'm not so sure about the use of this character as a fearsome enemy.  Anne Hathaway was okay as the White Queen, showing a few hints at bizarre character traits, but I don't think she had enough screen time to develop her character much.  Helena Bonham Carter had more screen time, but most of it was spent emphasizing how odd her character was and was, I think, supposed to generate more laughs than I gave it.  I felt that Mia Wasikowska did a pretty good job as Alice, making her one of the stronger heroines I've seen in a children's movie; I'm not entirely convinced that her "roll with the weirdness" attitude was the right one for a character entering Underland, but it was a choice and she stuck to it.  And then there's Johnny Depp.  The Mad Hatter isn't a character that is usually given depth, but here he has a back story and plays a critical role in the film.  To do that, Burton and Depp had to change the character significantly, and not just cosmetically (although his CGI/makeup was some of the most interesting in the film); this Hatter seems to have almost a split personality, with the harmless goofball character that is well known and a Scottish (I think) warrior character that is brand new.  I think Depp captured the mercurial nature of his character well, but his character is one of the aspects of this film that I found disappointing.

I have heard that Alice in Wonderland is not so much a children's story, so much as it is an acid trip told in nonsense rhymes.  Yes, this is a story that is typically aimed at children, and yes, this story does has some surreal nightmare qualities to it.  I think that balance lends itself nicely to Tim Burton's guiding hand; much of his work appears dark, but has a childlike quality at its core.  On the surface, this is a can't-miss concept.  In practice, though, all the visual effects in the world can't disguise the fact that the story in Alice in Wonderland is lacking.  There isn't a strong narrative, which shouldn't be a problem, since this is a story that should be about the wonders of this Underland.  But the whole movie builds toward a final battle that fails to do anything imaginative and ends up as a surprisingly dull action sequence.  Because this movie has that climax and they foreshadow it from the beginning, the rest of the story feels like an unstructured jumble that rambles on without much purpose.  Personally, I would have preferred a story where there was more rambling and a less typical climax.

With that story structure in place, though, Alice must be given motivation for trying to thwart the Red Queen's rule.  Since Alice is a stranger, that motivation has to come from the supporting cast, which ends up being the most prominent Underland inhabitant, The Mad Hatter.  I love me some Johnny Depp, and he is occasionally very charming in this role, but the militant edge to his character is left largely unexplained and his shifts into that persona are abrupt and unexplained.  This could have been circumvented if Alice had a personal stake in Underland, but she does not, and remains fairly dispassionate about the bizarre events surrounding her.

This movie just feels like ninety percent of the creative process focused on how the film would look, and maybe ten percent was spent on the story itself.  There are so many pieces of this film that work.  I liked all the voice acting and I didn't see a poor performance in the whole film.  I don't particularly like Depp or Mia Wasikowska's characters, but I think they both played their parts well.  There are all sorts of high concept issues brought up in this film (Colonialism, feminism, etc.), but I was happy to see these topics left without any explicit conclusions.  And let's not forget just how gorgeous this movie is.  Just looking at promotional posters for this movie makes me want to watch it again.  No, that's not right...they make me want my own production stills, framed and mounted on my wall.  I really liked a lot about this movie.  I just didn't like...well, the movie part of it.  With such a surprisingly limp emotional core, I was left unsatisfied with the film and extremely disappointed in Johnny Depp and Tim Burton.  The gorgeous peculiarity that is Alice in Wonderland is certainly worth viewing, but the story is inconsequential at best. 

Mary Reilly

Gothic horror.  The phrase immediately brings to my mind heavy shadows, forbidden longings and the time when morality and science were often completely opposed. If you give me a few more seconds to think about it, though, I might imagine fat kids with dyed black hair, eyeliner, stocking sleeves and combat boots that make me wish that I didn't like the Cure.

Those seemingly disparate ideas are not as separate as I might want to believe.  For every good Gothic horror story (Dracula, Frankenstein, From Hell - the comic), there is a crappy bastardization on film (Bram Stoker's Dracula, Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, From Hell - the movie).  All play with the same basic set of tools (science vs. superstition, dark vs. light, love vs. seduction), but the Hollywood versions in the 1990s consistently missed the mark.  Mary Reilly is a novel that offers an different point of view on Robert Louis Stevenson's The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.  It doesn't try to change much of the story, but offers some alternate motivations for the Jekyll/Hyde character.

The movie Mary Reilly attempts to do the same by shifting the narrative focus onto the shoulders of the title character.  Mary Reilly (Julia Roberts) is one of many servants in the Jekyll household.   I'm going to assume that anyone vaguely interested in this movie has a passing familiarity with Jekyll and Hyde, as an idea if not as literature, because the movie makes this assumption as well.  But, just to clarify, Dr. Jekyll is a middle-aged (maybe a little older) scientist that is brilliant and kind; unfortunately, he represses his emotions (which was the style at the time) and begins to long for a way to release them.  He creates a drug that transforms him into Mr. Hyde, a younger, more virile persona that is essentially Jekyll's Id unleashed.  Hyde's appearance varies from version to version, but he is always the lusty, violent side of Jekyll.  So, while that story is playing out in the background, Mary Reilly does her household chores, encountering Jekyll and Hyde from time to time.  She spends most of her time carrying food trays and gathering laundry.  Oh, the suspense exclamation mark three times.

Mary draws the attention of Dr. Jekyll (John Malkovich) when he notices some scars on Mary that are clearly from animal bites.  Initially too shy or socially reserved to tell her story, Mary later relates how her abusive father (Michael Gambon) once locked her in a closet with rats, which bit her many times.  When Jekyll asks if she hates her father for what he did, Mary refuses to hate; she reasoned that alcohol made him into a monster, one that acted, spoke, and even walked differently than her sober father.  This really hits home for Jekyll.  I think.  The camera holds a few extra beats of Jekyll staring with his mouth slightly open at this point, but Malkovich doesn't really emote much here.  Mr. Hyde (still Malkovich) also pays Mary special attention.  He enjoys flirting with her and making her uncomfortable.  He is rude and arrogant around her.  Presumably, this is because Jekyll is attracted to Mary, but cannot express himself properly.  Eventually, Hyde appears more and more, until he murders an important man in broad daylight in the streets of London for no reason.  And that's the movie.

I really want to point out this movie's flaws, but I'm going to start out positive.  John Malkovich is a good actor who can play an emotionally reserved man as easily as he can a jerk.  I thought the differentiation between the Jekyll and Hyde characters (vocal tones, facial expressions) was pretty decent.  I'm glad that at least one character (but sadly, only one character) pointed out the visual similarities between Jekyll and Hyde --- and yes, that is a poodle-haired Michael Sheen making that comment.  I liked Jekyll's laboratory, although it was unnecessarily weird; I get having the operating room be an auditorium, but there is no reason for the walkway into the lab to have been a suspended chain bridge.  That's just not practical.  As far as the acting goes, Michael Gambon did a decent job of being a disgusting, abusive drunk.  I thought Glenn Close's performance was muy macho, and it was brave of her to play a Victorian brothel-owning transvestite.  Oh, wait... she was supposed to be a woman?  With that accent?  And that Jay Leno chin?  That can't be right...

...And that's the best this movie has to offer.  Why is that, you ask?  Well, for starters, Julia Roberts was cast in the lead role.  I have nothing against Roberts, although I will admit that she does not usually star in movies that I desperately want to see.  This role goes against her strengths, though.  Julia Roberts is at her best when she is smiling and charming audiences.  Here, her performance reminds me of something I heard in The Goonies cast/director commentary; apparently,director Richard Donner's most common directorial instruction to his cast of child actors was "big eyes."  Julia Roberts channels that direction in this movie like no other.  She spends most of the movie looking like a Precious Moments doll, particularly one commemorating the moment when a child watched its dog get hit by a train.  I kept wanting to staple her lower lip to her face so she wouldn't keep tripping over than damn thing.  I get that working for Jekyll and Hyde doesn't make for slapstick comedy, but even servants have more than one emotion.  And that is just her character's normal state!  Eventually, she has a nightmare where Hyde begins to rape her, but when she wakes up screaming, her roommate tells Mary that the dream didn't sound bad to her.  That implies that Mary had a Hyde rape fantasy.  Finally, a movie that has the guts to stand up for rape.  Three cheers for rape!  In a related note, no matter how hard I scrub, I don't feel clean.

John Malkovich is not at his best here, either.  For a movie that is very British and very Victorian England, John's accent has attendance problems, to put it mildly.  I also find it hard to believe that anyone could  look at Malkovich's Jekyll and Hyde and not immediately conclude that they are the same person, or, at the very least, siblings.  Hyde has longer hair and no beard.  Aside from that, he still looks and speaks like Jekyll.  And I don't care what time period it is, John Malkovich is not someone that inspires dark, erotic dreams (I typed those words, but the only thing that made me feel better when I read it back was scraping my tongue).  I also didn't care for the way Hyde's crimes were handled.  In the original story, only the final murder is clearly a crime; the rest of Hyde's activities might have ranged from fairly innocent fare, such as staying out late in the city, drinking to excess, and sleeping with women of questionable morals to the more grisly stuff, like violence and murder.  Here, it is primarily a blood lust, which cheapens the character in my mind.  Also, the first evidence of violence shows Hyde's bedroom covered in blood, with only an animal's carcass (possibly a rat's) to imply that the blood is not human; the effect, however, is for the scene to resemble an act of beastiality gone horribly wrong (not that I'm judging).  Hyde then goes on to decapitate someone off camera and murders a man with a cane handle.  While not particularly fun to watch, there is little or no suspense, horror, or Gothic-ness in any of these scenes.  In fact, they come off as little more than disagreeable.

The biggest problem with this movie (aside from the two actors and their characters) is the subtlety of the film.  I rarely accuse any movie of being too subtle, but this movie never comes out and says anything.  I assume that Jekyll and Hyde have an emotional or sexual attraction for Mary Reilly, but I just don't know for sure.  This movie stays true to the Victorian way of not letting emotions show, but that really cramps a film's style when those same emotions are implied to be the motivating factors for the climax of the film.

The film was directed by Stephen Frears, a man that is capable of greatness (High Fidelity, anyone?).  Surely, his direction can be seen in Roberts' performance and the overall feel of the movie.  It is rare that I say this about a director that has talent, but either he missed every mark he set for this film, or he didn't aim for the right things.  This was painful to watch.  It wasn't until I was finished watching the movie that I realized that the movie's tag line ("Evil loves innocence") didn't refer to Jekyll/Hyde and Mary, but to the film and its audience.