ArthouseSchmarthouse’s review published on Letterboxd:
9.5
Blu Ray
Rewatch (2nd viewing)
What does it mean to be human? David Cronenberg's Frankenstein-esque cautionary tale stars Jeff Goldblum as a nerdy scientist who accidentally fuses his DNA with a fly, gradually becoming more and more insectile in nature until he literally falls apart.
My personal favourite Cronenberg film, this has everything: the purest expression of his obsession with the malleability and spongy, liquidy grossness, but also the beauty, of the human body; a brilliant lead performance from Goldblum, who goes from awkward and shambling science guy in the first act to manic sex obsessive in the second, and finally sad, lonely and broken freak in the third; an equally excellent Geena Davies, somehow managing to make a role which amounts to little more than reacting to things and screaming have substance; Oscar-winning make-up and practical effects that still more than hold up today in all of their bloody, gory magnificence (the inside-out baboon! The maggot-birth nightmare! The final stage Brundlefly!); a cleverly-paced score by Howard Shore, which plays quietly in the background when it needs to but quite happy to deliver a crescendo of strings and horns at the appropriately dramatic points; and the surprisingly emotional finale, in which a man-fly fusing Tetsuo-style with a machine is not allowed to overwhelm the tragedy of Brundle's descent into madness- ultimately, the audience is invited to feel empathy and horror for what has happened to him, rather than simply reveling in the crazy body horror shit. In other words, The Fly has both a heart and a brain, and that is why I love it so.
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