A deeply moving experience.

Rating: 10/10 (5 May 2001)

When my wife and I saw this in 1980, we returned the next week and saw it again, the only time we had ever done that. This is the very touching, true story of John Merrick (John Hurt), a Victorian Englishman who was born normal but became grotesquely deformed through disease. Abandoned by his mother, he became the slave of a vicious entrepreneur who lived by displaying him in a freak show. He was rescued by a doctor (Anthony Hopkins) who wanted to study him. When treated like a human being, he responded and proved to have a very noble nature. He eventually became a favourite among the members of high society for a variety of reasons. The cast and everything about this black and white film is superb.