This a great movie. It is based on the book Dr.Jekyll and Mr.Hyde. Told from the prospective of one of Dr.Jekyll servants. This movie as great acting. It also has a great story line. It also as great special effects. This is a story of how a Doctor discovers that man has two souls and good one and evil one. He tries to serpent the two. Soul he creates a formula that brings out his evil side. Then it starts to take him over. This one of the best remake ever. It is one of the scariest movies you will ever see. It is very intense. There are not very many movie scarier then Dr.Jekyll and Mr.Hyde (1931). This is one of them. I need more lines and I am running out of thing to say.

I really like the fact that the film is told from Mary Reilly's point of view. Not only hers, but everyone else's too, like the naive servants, the furious Mrs. Faraday (the brothel mistress). Mary Reilly - the character - also has a disturbing, traumatizing background story and at some point Mr. Hyde gives a pretty heavy psychological spin on it. It's never elaborated on or seems ignored even, but this suits the tone of the film. Insinuating things often hits harder than explaining them. Through some of the characters, some of the possible little script flaws (or plot holes) get solved. For instance, doesn't anybody notice that Dr. Jekyll and his assistant Mr. Hyde look very much alike? Only Hyde looks younger. Sure people notice this, but one of the servants goes about assuming that Mr. Hyde might very well be a product of Jekyll's student days. As a bright student, Jekyll was popular with the ladies. And since Jekyll never got married, if he would have had a son... in those days it was even a sin to merely speak about or suggest a thing like this.I like John Malkovich's performance a lot and it's clear that him & Stephen Frears both understood very well what they wanted to achieve here. The good doc Jekyll (whom is looked upon in high regards by his servants) is far from kosher to the bone himself (we get hints at how he conducts his research and we know he's a regular client at Mrs. Faraday's house of pleasure). While on the other hand, Mr. Hyde as the savage beast, has his scarce moments of weakness for Mary Reilly. See what I'm getting at? And when looking at it from Mary's side, she unwillingly brings out the worst in the best, and the best in the worst, so to speak. Frears & Malkovich and screenwriter Christopher Hampton added shades of gray to a classic, one too many times told story that is basically just about black & white. The film got me really interested in reading the source novel it was based on. To see how it compares the film.What else is there to like? Enough, I think. Phillipe Rousselot's wonderful cinematography. A captivating musical score by George Stenton. As much as it's a character-driven story, it does feature a handful moments of the grotesque. Glenn Close gets decapitated. Dr. Jekyll is seen on the street repeatedly kicking a little girl in the stomach. An engrossing scene that shows how slaughtered meat for consumption is being traded in the streets, followed by an analogy towards the trade of human organs for the sake of science. Not sure whom all were responsible for these sequences -- I understand that Frears, for example, never intended the film to end like it did, with that climactic transformation sequence. But said sequences are a graphic reminder of the fact that we are watching a horrific story. At any rate, I didn't think they hurt the film. They injected it with the necessary dosage of brutality.The set design is marvelous and Dr. Jekyll's laboratory - or at least the way of getting there - is cleverly structured (as it helps crafting the suspense of a certain scene in a brilliant manner). The 19th century London setting works convincing, but we don't get to see much of it. The blocking & framing makes sure we usually only see one part of a street at a time. And to add to this claustrophobic & dark notion this film has, most scenes take place on indoors sets. But also these sets are put to great use. To Mary Reilly, the doctor's mansion starts off as a safe haven, a place offering a good job and a possible better future. But it doesn't take long for this house to get infested with the evil of Mr. Hyde's presence at night. So much even, that it starts to haunt her dreams. This shift in tone happens gradually, with a slow but impeccable pace.Truth be told, to me Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde always seemed a very simplistic story to tell. At least in the classic version as it got famous. It's good source material, yes, but Frears & Hampton managed to squeeze a much more interesting film out of it. Which probably could have even been a lot better if the producing studio at the time wasn't so concerned about how it would do at the box office.Voilà, that's it for what I like about this film.Notice that I didn't mention Julia Roberts' performance. It's very down-toned, as it should be. She is there not to be noticed, her character demands it and so does the story. And while she does have a lot of screen time, she doesn't do much, so there's just not much to say about her acting. But you can always 'see' the wheels of her character's thoughts grinding, as she is the only one who's trying to fathom what's going on. From all the servants, she's the only one that knows how to read. Dr. Jekyll discovers this very early on, when he spots her reading a book in his library. This, of course, titillates the good doc's mind. And that's the point in the film, as soon as it comes, where you instantly realize this is going to take a turn for the worse. In that moment, there's a harmless thing between them that will inevitably unleash unspeakable horrors. And this 'harmless thing' even is personified throughout the whole film. It goes by the name of Mary Reilly.A very interesting adaptation. And a good film, full stop.

Sure the film is slow and it does not bear the usual features of a horror movie: no drumming music, no obvious blood spillage. This is what is so good about it! This is a fantasy about life, fear, social class, fascination about progress in medicine, and repressed sexuality in nineteenth century London. Therefore it is much more powerful and I really enjoyed the atmosphere. Acting by John Malkovich was great, as usual, and Julia Roberts delivers here a good performance playing a character quite remote from her usual roles. Excellent choice of secondary characters, all well cast in the archetypal roles society was giving at the time: there was little escape from your destiny to remain in the social classes you were born. Imagination is a good escape to frustration.One of the best versions of Jekyll and Hyde.

I was surprised to see Julia Roberts in what looked to be such a dark film but she played her role so well I really did feel like I was feeling everything she felt. John Malkovich as always played both Jekyll and Hyde with the passion and intensity that i have come to expect from him.I'm not much for period dramas but I have to admit that it was done so brilliantly and didn't feel stuffy and controlled like a lot of other period films I have tried watching. The story of Jekyll and Hide and it has been done in other films but this is one of the best I have seen. The film had a lot more feeling to it but was very subtle and made me think a lot of things through. The film has a slow pace compared to some but this isn't such a bad thing, it definitely didn't feel drawn out, it seemed to have enough time to venture down all the paths it needed including the death of Mary's mother.The film is classed partly as horror but the only part of the film which was scary to see was the scene where Mary witnesses Hde become Jekyll for the first and last time. The special effects were a little out there compared to the rest of the film, it was almost like someone put a microwave in Dr Jekyll's Victorian kitchen. It would have been better to see there faces gently merge from one character to the other.Other than that all I have to say is this is a brilliant film. Totally unexpected and charming in lots of ways.