DOCTOR JEKYLL *** UK 2023 Dir: Joe Stephenson. 89 mins
This revisionist take on the oft-adapted Robert Louis Stevenson classic immediately stirs those vulnerable neck hairs with the title and the legend “Hammer Presents” appearing onscreen in big, bright red letters, set to a suitably strident Blair Mowat score. Hammer Films, of course, have impressive history with the Stevenson tome, adapting it into Terence Fisher’s impressively grim but uncommercial THE TWO FACES OF DR. JEKYLL (1960) and, a decade later, the fascinating, dark-humoured gender-swapping DR. JEKYLL & SISTER HYDE (1971).
Dan Kelly-Mulhern’s screenplay has a 21st century Dr. Nina Jekyll (Eddie Izzard) as a hugely famous but scandalised billionaire big pharma CEO who has retreated from public life after reputation-dooming headlines, becoming a recluse at her remote mansion. Walking with a cane and needing help, she hires good-natured but easily-led young ex-con Rob (Scott Chambers) – fresh out of rehab – to be her assistant, against the better judgement of frosty estate manager Sandra Poole (Lindsay Duncan). The boyish, socially awkward Rob, having signed the compulsory NDA and provided a urine sample, desperately needs the live-in position as a means of finally getting to see his baby daughter.
As a character named Robert Louis Stevenson, Chambers is appealing – and there’s an unlikely, enjoyable chemistry between him and Izzard in the low-key but beguiling first hour. Bonding over a shared love of what Nina calls Crunchy Nutty Cornflakes, they are fun to watch. Izzard, as the granddaughter of Henry Jekyll, having inherited both his estate and condition, boogies to a classic tune while Chambers suffers a brutal beating, and nicely underplays the grinning Rachel Hyde, who figures in a more overtly bloody and horrific final stretch. It can’t help at times feel like one of the great comedian’s horror-homaging on-stage skits, and there’s an overall lack of genuine menace, but Izzard is still a fabulous screen presence.
Less successful is a dull sub-plot about Rob’s (underwritten) ex trying to lure him in to “One last score”, hogging valuable screen time away from the picture’s most compelling elements.
Review by Steven West
DOCTOR JEKYLL will be available on Digital Download from 11th March 2024