Doctor Jekyll, Is It Doomed To Be Such A Dreadful Shipwreck?

Doctor Jekyll, starring Eddie Izzard

Dr Nina Jekyll makes a fortune in the pharmaceutical industry and becomes a household name, but her success comes at a cost. A scandal forces her out of the spotlight and into seclusion. In need of an assistant, Jekyll hires Rob, a reformed convict straight out of rehab who is trying to get back on his feet.… MORE

Director: Joe A. Stephenson

Distributed by: Hammer Film Productions

Doctor Jekyll, starring Eddie Izzard, a horror movie review by Hope Madden

You can’t blame a film for not being what you hoped it was going to be. The fact that your goals don’t match the filmmaker’s goals doesn’t mean the film is less than it should be, just that the filmmaker had their own plan and if you want to see the movie you hoped for, it’s up to you to make it.

The idea of Eddie Izzard playing Doctor Jekyll is tantalizing, bursting with possibilities as a statement on being trans—sort of I Saw the TV Glow but goth. This is an amazing idea and a movie I’d like to see.

And Doctor Jekyll is a Hammer Horror, which makes it sound like even more fun.

It is not. Not a meditation on being trans—an unfortunate waste of an opportunity, but if that wasn’t in the filmmakers’ plans, so be it.

But it’s also not fun, not anything worth your time. What a waste.

Izzard does all she can with the role of reclusive Big Pharma billionaire Dr. Nina Jekyll. Jekyll’s assistant and only connection to the outside world—the always welcome Lindsay Duncan—is looking for a live in caregiver. Somehow, Rob (Scott Chambers) lands an interview. It was a mistake, never meant to happen, can’t imagine how he wasn’t vetted.

Jekyll takes an immediate shine to the goofy reformed convict and hires him, against her assistant’s stern warning. But is it really Doctor Jekyll at all?

Eddie Izzard has a bit of fun with both characters and all’s well enough as long as she’s on screen. But at no time does director Joe Stephenson offer any reason to have revisited Robert Louis Stevenson’s old id/superego story.

**Doctor Jekyll, starring Eddie Izzard, a horror movie review by Hope Madden**

First time screenwriter Dan Kelly-Mulhern tosses the source material in the bin but can come up with no relevant or interesting new twist, even though a tantalizing possibility is staring him in the face.

Chambers is certainly likeable enough in the role of doofus caregiver, but ex con with a guilty conscience and dark past? Not buying it for a second, which makes the character’s arc borderline ridiculous and Chambers lacks the chops to elevate the material.

The story itself is nothing but holes. With nary a coherent thread of story line to cling to, Eddie Izzard’s charm and wicked humor are in service of nothing. It’s almost offensive that RLS gets a writing credit.

Doctor Jekyll, starring Eddie Izzard, a horror movie review by Hope Madden