With all my various rewatching of David Cronenberg films recently as well as within the last ten years, I somehow skipped watching The Fly. It's funny, because my ex even owned this on DVD and so in part one of the reasons I never went out of my way to watch this one again is because for 10 years with her, I assumed we'd watch her DVD any day now. Aaaaany day now.
The Fly stars Geena Davis and Jeff Goldblum, directed by aforementioned David Cronenberg, and one revelation I had is how minimal in scope it is. There's about three characters in this movie, mostly on one set, and mostly the story is told through dialogue. The latter half has of course a huge amount of effects and makeup, but I think they were able to focus a lot more on that because of the minimal approach everywhere else in the film.
It's a simple enough plot: Jeff Goldblum meets and romances Geena Davis early on into the film, she's a reporter, he's a scientist who takes her back to his house to show her his invention. He puts a stocking into a large round pod and pressed some buttons and pretty soon the stocking is teleported to another similar pod. It's the real deal - teleportation. She's enamored. Soon enough, Jeff Goldblum drunkenly teleports himself, but there is one small twist - a fly in the pod with him, unbeknownst to him. The pod decides to fuse their DNA and his transformation begins.
There's not a ton I remembered about this one, mostly the appearance of Jeff Goldblum, and his self given name Brundlefly. I remembered some of the effects, but I didn't remember all of them, nor how amazing and particularly disgusting they were. It's a slow transformation, with about 6 weeks or so passing in the film.
It's really great, and honestly, I think this is Goldblum's best acting I've ever seen. As he becomes more of a fly, he develops anger, twitchiness, manic energy, and other bizarre personality shifts. He's given a firm reality check by Geena Davis, and her scuzzbucket ex-boyfriend is the strange character you didn't know this movie needed, but it sorely did.
Fantastic in tone and wonderfully brought to screen, this is a gem from Cronenberg that I think is a great film every which way.
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