Some movies are cursed not by demons or haunted objects but by the crushing weight of miscalculation. Mary Reilly is one of those movies. It’s what happens when a major studio takes Julia Roberts—America’s sweetheart with the billion-dollar smile—and stuffs her into a Victorian maid’s dress, tells her not to smile, hands her a mop, and then makes her whisper for two hours. Add John Malkovich as both Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, looking like a man torn between devouring souls and ordering herbal tea, and you have the cinematic equivalent of a tax audit.
The idea sounds interesting on paper: retell Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde from the perspective of a maid, giving us a “downstairs” view of gothic horror. In execution, it’s a gray, lifeless period piece where the scariest thing isn’t Hyde but the possibility that the movie still has an hour left.
Julia Roberts: The Quietest Scream Queen
Julia Roberts, fresh off Pretty Woman and My Best Friend’s Smile That Saved the Box Office, was clearly trying to stretch. Instead, she shrinks. Her Irish accent is flatter than yesterday’s Guinness, and she spends the film whispering like a haunted teapot. Every line delivery feels like she’s auditioning to be the world’s politest ghost.
Roberts’ Mary is supposed to be tragic and sympathetic, scarred by childhood trauma, caught in the web of Jekyll and Hyde’s madness. But what we get is a woman who looks like she’s perpetually deciding whether to polish the silver or just faint. She’s “sexy maid with trauma backstory” in theory, but in practice she’s wallpaper with a pulse.
John Malkovich: Two Roles, One Expression
John Malkovich plays both Dr. Henry Jekyll and Edward Hyde. You’d think that would mean big contrasts—meek doctor by day, sadistic beast by night. Instead, Jekyll and Hyde both look and sound like John Malkovich suffering from indigestion. Hyde is supposed to be terrifying, a manifestation of primal urges. Here, he looks like Jekyll stayed up too late and forgot to moisturize.
There’s no menace, no transformation—just Malkovich breathing a little heavier and maybe not brushing his hair. When he propositions Mary, it’s less “dark, sensual danger” and more “middle manager hits on the intern at an office Christmas party.”
The Pacing: Slow as Victorian Laundry
The movie moves like molasses uphill in January. Gothic horror should be slow-burn, but Mary Reilly is slow-death. Entire scenes pass where nothing happens except candles flickering and people sighing about propriety. It’s less horror, more Downton Abbey without the charm, wit, or Maggie Smith to keep you awake.
Every time you think something might happen—Hyde might snap, Mary might uncover a secret—the film doubles down on gloom. It’s like being promised a roller coaster and getting stuck on the escalator at Sears.
Glenn Close as Mrs. Faraday: The Only Spark
Glenn Close shows up as a madam, looking like she raided Cruella de Vil’s closet and added extra eyeliner. She chews scenery like it’s her last meal. Next to Roberts’ whispering and Malkovich’s constipation, Close looks like she’s having the time of her life. Honestly, if the movie had just followed her running a Victorian brothel, it would’ve been an improvement.
Horror Without the Horror
A gothic horror film should have atmosphere, dread, and at least one scene where you go, “Oh God, don’t go in there.” Instead, Mary Reilly gives you fog machines and some rats. Rats! The film tries to make Mary’s childhood trauma with rats into a metaphor, but it lands like a cheap carnival trick.
The violence happens mostly off-screen. Hyde murders a prostitute? We hear about it secondhand. A grisly decapitation? Cut away. The film seems terrified of upsetting the audience, which is hilarious given it’s supposed to be about unleashing humanity’s darkest desires.
The Romance That Wasn’t
There’s an undercurrent that Mary is attracted to both Jekyll and Hyde—the kind, tragic doctor and the dangerous bad boy. But Roberts and Malkovich have less chemistry than two wet socks in a dryer. Watching them interact is like watching an awkward middle school dance: a lot of staring at the floor and hoping someone else will cut in.
When Hyde kisses Mary, it’s not erotic or frightening—it’s confusing. You wonder if Malkovich is rehearsing for a different movie.
Budget: $47 Million on Fog and Sadness
Here’s the true horror: this film cost nearly $50 million. Where did the money go? Not on special effects—the transformations look like Malkovich smeared Vaseline on his face. Not on sets—most of the movie takes place in the same three rooms, all lit like a funeral home. Apparently, it went to fog machines, candles, and Julia Roberts’ paycheck.
The box office return was $12 million. Even the audience wasn’t buying what this movie was selling, and what it was selling was gloom in bulk.
The Director’s Curse
Stephen Frears had made Dangerous Liaisons, a sharp, witty period drama full of lust and betrayal. Trying to recapture that magic with Julia Roberts whispering in a dark house was like trying to bottle lightning by standing in the rain with a Tupperware. It didn’t work.
What’s Supposed to Be Deep is Just Dull
The film wants to explore trauma, repression, and the duality of man. Instead, it feels like a term paper stretched into two hours. Mary’s scars from her abusive father should be poignant, but they’re trotted out as a lazy shorthand for “look, she’s damaged too!” The whole thing reeks of faux profundity, like someone reading Freud at a high school poetry slam.
Final Act: Death by Whispering
By the climax, when Jekyll/Hyde dies in Mary’s arms, you don’t feel horror or sadness. You feel relief. Relief that it’s almost over. Relief that you can leave the theater and rejoin the living. Roberts sheds quiet tears, Malkovich contorts, and you wonder if they knew they were starring in one of the most expensive sleep aids of the ’90s.
Final Judgment
Mary Reilly is a movie where horror goes to die, buried under whispers, fog, and a complete lack of chemistry. It’s not scary, not sexy, not profound—just dreary. Julia Roberts tries to stretch, Malkovich mumbles, Glenn Close briefly rescues the movie, and the rest is cinematic Ambien.
