An elephant never forgets, and "The Elephant Man" is unforgettable.

Rating: 10/10 (19 December 2005)

Anthony Hopkins is so associated with Hannibal Lecter, that we almost forget that he did star in movies before that. "The Elephant Man", for example. It's sort of hard to determine whether the main character is disfigured John Merrick (John Hurt) or Dr. Frederick Treves (Hopkins). Either way, it's the movie's plot that's important. The plot of course shows how Merrick has been treated as a monster all his life and Treves tries to cure him. As for the possibility that the movie may have revered its subject too much...well, would you feel comfortable mocking him? A particularly interesting combo is the people behind the movie: director David Lynch and executive producer Mel Brooks (Brooks' wife Anne Bancroft appears as an actress). The former is synonymous with deliberately weird cinema, while the latter is synonymous with silliness. Both men show a different side here. All in all, this is definitely a movie that everyone should see.