Review: Mrs. Hyde, 2018, dir. Serge Bozon

Nothing like watching a weird-ass movie adaptation of one of your favorite books that is nigh-unrecognizable from the book, am I right?

I doubt Serge Bozon wants me to be mad about Mrs. Hyde; I doubt he made the movie expecting it’d actually make anyone mad. Without a doubt, though, I can say that the movie did most grievously chap my ass (though I’ll also gently admit it did not make me “mad” per se), because I really love Robert Louis Stevenson’s Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, and I’d be lying if I said Bozon’s film feels like a big ol’ cheat. Saying the film is based on the book isn’t totally honest. Saying it’s inspired by the book isn’t totally honest, either.

Maybe I’d have liked this more if a) Bozon took a firm stance on literally any of his themes, and b) if he’d just dropped the allusions to Edward Hyde and Stevenson and just let Mrs. Hyde be its own thing. But he didn’t, so I went to town on it for Paste Magazine.