Dr. Jekyll and Ms. Hyde
| Dr. Jekyll and Ms. Hyde | |
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 Dr. Jekyll and Ms. Hyde DVD Cover Art |
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| Directed by | David Price |
| Produced by | Frank K. Isaac Robert Shapiro |
| Written by | David Price (story and screenplay) Tim John Oliver Butcher (screenplay) |
| Starring | Sean Young Timothy Daly Lysette Anthony Harvey Fierstein Stephen Tobolowsky and Jeremy Piven |
| Music by | Mark McKenzie |
| Cinematography | Tom Priestley Jr. |
| Editing by | Tony Lombardo |
| Distributed by | Savoy Pictures (USA) Rank Organisation (International) |
| Release date(s) | August 25, 1995 |
| Running time | 90 min. |
| Country | United Kingdom United States |
| Language | English |
Dr. Jekyll and Ms. Hyde is a 1995 British-American comedy film starring Tim Daly, Sean Young and Lysette Anthony. The film is based on Robert Louis Stevenson's classic horror novel Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.
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[edit] Plot
Richard Jacks (Tim Daly) is a perfumer fed up working at a major fragrance company, where he is the butt of the joke with much of his fellow employees. After his great grandfather dies, Jacks attends the will reading and whilst everyone else receives houses, money and boats, Jacks receives a bunch of science notes, something he is far from happy with. He discovers that his ancestor was in fact Dr. Henry Jekyll and Jacks becomes fascinated about the duality of man, he starts performing experiments to refine the formula that separates good and evil. Realizing that his ancestor's formula increased male aggression, Jacks decides to add more estrogen to the mixture in the hope that it will prove less dangerous.
After a night of monitoring his vital stats after investing a formula he put together, he gives up and finally attends a job interview. Although everything appears fine at first, Jacks' voice soon changes, his nails grow and the hairs on his arms recede back under his skin. Jacks looks puzzled but then feels some strange feelings from his genitalia area and watches in horror as his penis deflates and transforms into a vagina. However, he is still in denial and only realises what's happening when his hair grows and he develops breasts, all whilst still in the job interview. Horrified, he rushes to his workplace, where the changes work on face and mind. There, he looks into a mirror and realizes he is now female.
The new female alter-ego names herself Helen Hyde (Sean Young) and introduces herself as Jacks's beautiful new assistant. She quickly develops a personality independent of her creator (embracing womanhood to its fullest) and at this point acts more like a protagonist and is actually quite likeable: she rewrites Jacks's reports, is kind to his secretary, and lovingly flirts with his superiors. Over the next few days she rewards herself with a shopping spree and eventually befriends Jacks' fiancee, Sarah (Lysette Anthony), and has Sarah move out of Jack's apartment so she can have it for herself. Soon after this, Hyde transforms back into Jacks.
Jacks returns to work the next day, and, after several comments from his colleagues, realizes that Hyde was real but is unable to access any of her memories due to the fact they are now two separate people. Nonetheless, he feels invigorated and invites Sarah to his place for a romantic meal in order to up for past transgressions. Everything appears to be going well until he realizes he is again transforming into Hyde, causing Sarah to flee. As it turns out, the impotency of his grandfather's formula has caused an instability in his genes, causing Hyde and Jacks to transform into each other without warning.
Hyde is determined to carve out a life of her own and starts taking advantage of her creator's absence by sleeping around the office in order to gain an advantage--even going as far as to have sex with a homosexual man. Just when Hyde is about to have sex with Jacks' boss, she starts changing back into Jacks and hides herself in the toilet. Jacks then finds himself horrified by the situation he finds himself in and makes his escape via a nearby window; however, this does not prevent Hyde from gaining the upper hand by becoming his superior at work, disfiguring his colleague (Jeremy Piven), and stealing his projects.
Knowing no-one would believe him, Jacks desperately tries to record the transformation and handcuffs himself to the bed, only to be horrified as Sarah walks in and finds his closest to be full of lingerie. This leads Sarah to believe that he is having an affair with Hyde. It is only after Sarah leaves that Jacks transforms into Hyde once again.
Angered at Jacks' attempt to expose the truth, Hyde proceeds to burn all of his grandfather's documents and warns Jacks via a video of her intentions to take over completely. He then realizes that he is actually starting to spending more time as Hyde than himself and that he has to come up with a plan before he disappears completely. Desperate, Jacks tries to humiliate Hyde in front of her superiors by stripping naked and writing obscenities all over his body in hopes that they will walk in on her after she takes over. But Hyde manages to outsmart him by delaying the change, causing his plan to backfire and himself to be fired from the company. He then turns to Sarah for help, but is rejected because of his supposed affair with Hyde.
Just when it looks like Hyde is about to complete her quest for domination, Jacks finally manages to convince Sarah about his condition with the help of CCTV footage from the initial transformation. Sarah then agrees to help as Jacks comes up with a formula that would effectively destroy the Hyde part of himself, but is forced to take it under a certain time limit before Hyde's DNA can fuse for good. After he transforms into Hyde, Sarah's attempts to inject her with the formula but fails--injecting only about 20% of it, causing random body parts to spontaneous transform parts between male and female. A fire soon breaks out in the apartment and Hyde escapes.
Hyde steals a dress, then makes her way to the launch of a perfume that she "invented" (it was exactly the same as a scent Jacks had come up with but was initially rejected by the feminist executive at the company), but the formula causes her to temporarily grow stubble and her breasts to disappear and reappear while she intermingles with guests. Meanwhile, Sarah, who has snuck into the party, hides in the speech podium and waits until the promotion video starts before injecting the rest of the formula into Hyde, whom unwillingly starts transforming back into Jacks.
The films ends as a relieved Jacks realises it's over but sees that he's standing in a room full of colleagues wearing a dress . He makes a speech about the only way he could understand a woman was to become one.
[edit] Cast
- Timothy Daly as Dr. Richard Jacks - Daly replaced Jim Carrey in the role of Dr. Jacks. Carrey left to film The Mask and Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls.
- Sean Young as Helen Hyde - Young was pregnant during filming, but that didn't stop her receiving mostly negative reactions to her performance as Hyde, including being nominated for two "Razzies."
- Lysette Anthony as Sarah Carver
- Stephen Tobolowsky as Oliver Mintz
- Harvey Fierstein as Yves DuBois
- Thea Vidale as Valerie
- Jeremy Piven as Pete Walston
- Polly Bergen as Mrs. Unterveldt
[edit] Reception
Reviews of the film were generally mixed to negative. The storyline was heavily criticised and the transformation sequences were also viewed as unconvincing and laughable. However, the film did garner a small cult following upon being released on home video.
Despite most of the cast receiving generally favourable feedback, the film was nominated for three "Razzies," including "Worst Actress" for Sean Young, "Worst Remake or Sequel" for Robert Shapiro and Jerry Leider, and "Worst Screen Couple" for Tim Daly and Sean Young, despite the obvious fact that they don't appear on screen at the same time once.
At the time of writing, the film has a below-average rating of 4.2 on the IMDB.
[edit] Home Format
After the film's theatrical run, HBO released the film onto VHS and in 2004, onto DVD. The DVD is now discontinued and as of March 29, 2010, neither HBO or Focus Features, the latter of whom has begun to acquire some of Savoy's movies, has announced any plans to release a new DVD of the film. For these reasons, used copies of the original DVD have gone up for as much as $27 to $40 online.
[edit] See also
- List of American films of 1995
- Dr. Jekyll and Sister Hyde, another, earlier, version of the story also featuring a female Hyde.
[edit] External links
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