Some may say watching The Fly on Valentine’s Day is a mistake on many levels. Some may say the body horror is unromantic, some may say Stathis Borans’ character is a gross man, even grosser than the Fly, and some may have expected Jeff Goldblum to portray a suave and classy scientist, only to be greeted with his performance of the average engineering student – a reclusive Poindexter who would’ve failed an Intro to Ethics course. I mean look at current Jeff Goldblum Apartments.com commercials with his beautiful hair and glasses, how on earth was this the same man? But to all the naysayers, I say: begone with ye, as I watched this movie with two important people and we all left the theater a bit emotional (Me, Myself, and I).
And why not watch this movie on Valentine’s Day? The Fly discusses the trials and tribulations of love, specifically touching on when disease ravages someone close to you, and body horror doesn’t make it any less of a movie about love. Think of a tragic love story. Besides, what makes a movie romantic in your mind? What does the schema of a movie about love look like to you? What about a movie involving a tragic love story? Consider more than just how the characters look or the Wikipedia plot summary; think about the situations they’re put in, how they reel us into the story, make us believe in the characters, and chemistry between actors that make us root for their romance. Keep in mind, I am no expert. I just want to defend this movie as a tragic love story. The Fly might intrigue you. It may disgust you. But most importantly, it will bring you to care about the characters and leave you pondering the unique human aspect of love that we find ourselves constantly figuring out and fighting for.
The Fly was directed by David Cronenberg in 1986, and stars Jeff Goldblum as Seth Brundle, Geena Davis as Veronica “Ronnie” Quaife, and John Getz as Stathis Borans. The Wexner Center for the Arts hosted a screening of the movie on Valentine’s Day, and as a journalist, I had to investigate this matter. At the time, I did not know Cronenberg’s movie remade a 1958 movie of the same name. Although they may have a similar premise, the two differ in what they convey. While the 1958 original focused more on the danger of scientific truth and inquiry (Oppie! Oppie! Oppie!), Cronenberg concentrates on the interpersonal relationships of the main characters, and how the fly transformation affects them. It portrays the struggle of loving your partner undergoing what can amount to a disease, caused by nothing other than unfavorable odds, that leaves your them unrecognizable from the person you love. You can offer them all the help you want, but in the end, you are forced to watch them terminally mutate into someone unrecognizable.
The film starts off with Seth, a socially inept scientist, meeting Veronica, an ambitious journalist who still holds out hope for her big break. In nothing more than an effort to woo Ronnie, Seth shows off his “telepods” by teleporting her stocking from one pod to another. Ronnie reveals she’s a journalist working for Particle Magazine, and immediately interviews Seth, much to his disappointment and annoyance. Against Seth’s wishes, Ronnie takes this story to her editor and ex-boyfriend Stathis Borans. He instructs her to follow Seth more, as Stathis feels skeptical of Seth’s discovery. But soon, a romance starts between Seth and Ronnie.
As Stathis watches the two fall in love, he falls deep into envy, stalking the two in the vain hope of prying Ronnie away from Seth. While the initial meeting between Seth and Ronnie gets off to a rocky start, Seth offers Ronnie the chance to document his experiments. His telepod has one major hurdle: he still needs to work out how to teleport organic matter – or flesh, as he calls it. She agrees, as Seth’s work can revolutionize transportation and mankind for the better (and because he offered her a cheeseburger). The two, predictably, fall in love, but the palpable chemistry from Jeff Goldblum and Geena Davis sells it. The movie wastes no time getting to their relationship, but it feels intimate because of the two actors and the life they breathe into Seth and Ronnie.
Geena Davis deserves plenty of praise for her performance. She gives Ronnie such confidence and determination that contrasts well with Goldblum’s naivete. Their relationship works so well that you start to worry about Seth in the same manner that Ronnie does. Even after Seth transforms, I was so gripped by the romance between Ronnie and Seth that as I watched Seth deteriorate I myself felt despair analogous to someone else watching their significant other become sick and slowly deteriorate. The scene where Seth calls Ronnie after going into hiding for a month, only to show her how he’s deteriorating and mutating repulses and yet enthralls you as you watch, drawing you in with both your disgust and empathy.
Seth has to vomit up enzymes in order to digest his food, with the apartment littered with trash and his clothes tattered up and covered in vomit. Ronnie looks on, devastated and in shock. Out of reflex for the man she loves, she reaches out and comforts Seth by hugging him, fresh vomit on himself and his clothes. The scene captivates you with its raw emotion, as Ronnie reacts in any way a lover would when their partner is scared and changing. You feel just devastated as Ronnie does, and it trumps the disgust you feel from watching Seth demonstrate his vomiting technique. You just want to see him get better. He didn’t ask for any of this. Cronenberg efficiently crafted a masterful and engaging relationship, where the audience feels the weight of the moment and love the characters have for one another from this scene alone.
The transformation into the fly starts when, in a drunken and jealous stupor, Seth tests his telepods with organic matter for the first time with himself as the test subject. As he enters the pod and the telepod begins to start, he looks forward, determined, hoping to finally finish his project – only to miss that a fly had entered the telepod with him. Thus starts his gradual mutation into Brundlefly, a half man half-fly hybrid.
The telepod works by separating the genes and molecules that make up the matter in the telepod. The fly contaminates this biological soup, merging Seth’s molecules 50/50 with that of a fly. At first, he gains super strength and becomes a sexual animal with enough confidence to break a man’s arm. Seth feels Ronnie can’t keep up with his new sense of self, and thinks that he’s been purified by the telepod. But as Seth he starts to grow fly legs for hair and partially decays day by day, he reverts back to his awkward and shy self, only now as an unrecognizable mass of tumorous flesh with little time left.
I want to note the phenomenal makeup work on Seth’s transformation into Brundlefly. The movie was awarded an Oscar by The Academy for Best Makeup, yet they did not nominate Jeff Goldblum or Geena Davis for Best Actor. An utter deception for people discovering a classic movie for the first time (me), but The Academy have notoriously blown off actor’s performances in horror movies, seeing them as “low brow” (See: The Thing, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and Pearl to name a few). Only a select few are viewed as “artsy” or “highbrow” enough for The Academy. And don’t get me wrong, the ones that have gotten praise deserve it. But time and time again horror films get disregarded for their cachet as a low form of entertainment.
However, movies today should take note of The Fly’s story and characters. The 96-minute movie has a more convincing romance and story than most movies today. It’s coldly efficient in the way it progresses and agonizingly devastating in the way it finishes. You don’t even realize you’ve only been with the characters for an hour and a half. Some movies run for an hour and a half but feel like an eternity with their horrendously uninteresting characters and joyless and asinine plots (Looking at you, Night Swim.)
This movie devastates you. Out of sheer bad luck, a scientist falls prey to a repulsive transformation and has a life with his new lover stolen away. The movie had me engaged the entire time. Not once was I left with my own thoughts. Not a dull moment goes on in this movie and the fantastic performances and beautifully crafted story had me invested the entire time.
The score doesn’t get enough praise in my opinion. It felt theatrical, rich, and full of intensity. It gets you feeling like no matter how far you hide, you can see the horror staring back at you. And it does this in four tracks! It’s no surprise that the composer, Howard Shore, worked on other theatrical and lively movies like Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit, Silence of the Lambs, and King Kong. The body horror, while intense, didn’t feel out of place or “unnatural”. We’ve all come into contact with vomit, fingernail pulling, and deterioration. It’s not alien to us, but this movie does have this in spades. Maybe movies like The Thing and The Substance have accustomed me to body horror. The Fly transformation wasn’t as gross as it was engrossing. You can see the influence of this movie on The Substance, another fantastic movie that takes the theme of deterioration and aging to a whole different level.
While The Fly holds a roller coaster of emotions, full of disgust, shock, and horror, with all the unnatural transformations, gore, and science mumbo, it a movie that leaves you feeling human by the end. Even though at the end Seth has turned into a Fly, it was no fault of his own. He’s still Seth, just buried beneath Brundlefly and all the fly genes and mutations. His most human moment comes when he asks to be put out of his misery at the end, as now anything remotely resembling Seth has been stripped away. The true horror comes in how any random day a disease or condition can take away anyone’s humanity and selfhood. It can happen to anyone. You leave the theater holding onto your partner a little closer, and you reach out to your loved ones, to hear the sound of their voice, assuring you they’re doing alright.
The Fly is a movie that leaves nothing on the table. It is wildly efficient in the time it gives you, has you immersed for its short duration, has a fantastic score, and includes an amazing cast, engaging romance that puts modern romance movies to shame, phenomenal makeup, and a heartbreaking plot that leaves you with an eerie feeling you can’t seem to shake off. It does more with less and deserves all the praise and influence it leaves behind.
10/10.
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