Haunting Film About Transformation And Doomed Love

Rating: 10/10 (23 August 2001)

Wow!!!!!!! You either love or hate this film and I certainly love it. Very rarely has a movie really affected and moved me like this one. While Geena Davis as the scientist's sympathetic journalist girlfriend Veronica ("Ronny") and Jon Getz's Stathis Borans are both superb it its Jeff Goldblum's Seth Brundle that really elevates the piece into the harrowing masterpiece that it is. Brundle is fascinating to watch because he doesn't feel any pity for himself but takes his transformation as any scientist would, as an absolute biological wonder. It is not until he really starts to become physically weak and dying that he feels regret for his ambition (but of course towards the end he regains his confidence). I really give so much credit to David Cronenberg in creating a film with such haunting ambience. Where the locations are cold, sterile and kept to a minimum (characters are also kept to a minimum with only three main characters and a few other very small characters with a few lines of dialogue) for a reason: so that you are stuck with this morphing, oozing man. You have got to roost with the fella to really feel what he is going through. Howard Shore of course adds to the sense of forboding and eerie quality of the film with his wonderful score. People often tell me how they thought the film was too violent and gorry. But how could you envision the picture in any other way? Why don't those people make their own ending to the film where the fly joins a beach club and surfs by day and dances by night. The real fans we'll keep the film just how it is. 10/10.