General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20265 min read

Mary Reilly (1996 film)

Mary Reilly is a 1996 gothic horror drama directed by Stephen Frears, adapted by Christopher Hampton from Valerie Martin's 1990 novel, in which the story of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is retold through the eyes of the physician's housemaid. It stars Julia Roberts in the title role and John Malkovich as both Dr. Henry Jekyll and Mr. Edward Hyde, and was produced and distributed by TriStar Pictures¹.

Key fact	Detail
Director / writer	Stephen Frears; screenplay by Christopher Hampton, based on the novel Mary Reilly by Valerie Martin (New York, 1990)¹
Principal cast	Julia Roberts (Mary Reilly), John Malkovich (Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde), George Cole (Mr. Poole), Michael Gambon (Mary's father), Glenn Close (Mrs. Farraday)¹^•²
Release	Wide domestic release February 23, 1996 by Sony Pictures, opening in 1,470 theaters³
Box office	$2,812,620 opening weekend; $5,707,094 domestic and $12,379,402 worldwide, against a reported production budget of $47,000,000³^•⁴
Reception	26% on the Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer from 43 reviews; 40% from audiences⁵
Rating and length	MPAA rated R "for notable gore and some strong violence"; AFI lists 118 minutes¹^•³

Spoilers

Story and source

The film follows Mary Reilly, an Irish housemaid in the household of the respected physician Dr. Henry Jekyll. Mary admires her employer, who in turn is intrigued by her, and she later meets his mysterious associate Edward Hyde, played by the same actor, gradually suspecting a connection between the two men that puts her life in danger⁵. The setting is a dark, fogbound Edinburgh of the 1890s².

The screenplay adapts Valerie Martin's 1990 novel, which itself retells Robert Louis Stevenson's 1886 novella The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde from the point of view of one of Jekyll's female servants, a woman with scars on her hands and a painful past⁶^•⁷. Hampton, a British screenwriter and playwright who had previously adapted his own play Dangerous Liaisons for Frears, worked from Martin's novel⁸.

Supporting roles include George Cole as the butler Mr. Poole, Michael Gambon as Mary's father, Kathy Staff as Mrs. Kent, Glenn Close as the brothel madam Mrs. Farraday, who makes living arrangements for Hyde and blackmails Jekyll for her silence, Michael Sheen as Bradshaw, and Ciaran Hinds as Sir Danvers Carew⁹^•¹⁰^•³.

Production

Behind the camera, the film used a British and American crew: cinematography by Philippe Rousselot, editing by Lesley Walker, music by George Fenton, and production design by Stuart Craig; costume design was by Consolata Boyle. Producers were Ned Tanen, Nancy Graham Tanen, and Norma Heyman, with Lynn Pleshette as executive producer and Iain Smith as co-producer¹^•¹¹^•¹². The transformation effects were shared among Animated Extras, The Computer Film Company, Jim Henson's Creature Workshop, and Peerless Camera Company, and the studio work was done at Pinewood Studios¹³^•¹⁴.

According to IMDb trivia, Tim Burton was originally set to direct after completing Ed Wood (1994) but dropped out of the production¹⁵. The release was held up for about a year in a fight between the studio and Frears over reshooting the ending, before all parties decided to keep the ending as originally shot¹³.

Release and box office

The film opened in Los Angeles and New York the week of February 23, 1996, in general release throughout Southern California, and went wide on February 23, 1996¹^•¹¹^•³. It opened in eighth place with $2,812,620, which accounted for 49.3% of its total domestic gross, and fell 50% in its second weekend³. The worldwide total was about $12.4 million, roughly 0.3 times the reported $47 million production budget³^•⁴. Sony Pictures released a remastered video edition on December 2, 2014³.

Critical reception

Critics consensus at Rotten Tomatoes holds that the movie looks good and has its moments but borders on boredom; 26% of 43 surveyed reviews were positive⁵.

Diverging judgments. Roger Ebert rated the film two and a half stars and argued that it is in some ways more faithful to the spirit of Stevenson's original story than any earlier film version, because it is true to the underlying horror of a powerless young woman who feels sympathy for one side of a man's nature and fear of the other; he also praised Frears for playing most of the action on a few vast yet claustrophobic sets and for a visual intimacy that avoids most cliches suggested by the material². Kenneth Turan, writing in the Los Angeles Times, called the film sluggish and interminable, faulting Malkovich's repressed Jekyll and Close's "hammy cameo" as the madam, and reporting that the film was shot without any agreed-upon plan for an ending¹¹. David Ansen of Newsweek found the treatment academic, without true terror and with only the most muted sexual charge⁵.

Aftermath

When it came out, the film was regarded as a disaster on the order of Ishtar (1985), Howard the Duck (1986), Hudson Hawk (1991), or The Island of Dr. Moreau (1996), a standing driven by the gap between its budget and its grosses¹³. The film is notable as an unusual late-career star vehicle for Roberts and as one of the few Jekyll and Hyde adaptations told from a servant's vantage point; critics have since grouped it with the mid-1990s trend of blending horror with period drama that followed the success of Bram Stoker's Dracula¹⁶.

References

Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026