THE STORY – Against a heightened, macabre backdrop, this bold musical follows Araminta, a taxidermist determined to stuff a human, and Bernie, a lonely soul desperate to leave a legacy, who volunteers to be her specimen. But as they set their plan in motion, an unexpected romance threatens to upend their deadly arrangement.
THE CAST – Jodie Comer & Harry Melling
THE TEAM – Theo Rhys (Director/Writer) & Joss Holden-Rea (Writer)
THE RUNNING TIME – 117 Minutes
In a movie musical, tone-setting is the most important thing. Musicals exist at a level of heightened reality that demands a lot from audiences, and if you don’t establish that right off the bat and get them to buy in, you risk losing them. For stage musicals, Overtures usually do this work, but movies generally skip them, since cinema audiences have different sensibilities. Before even a single note has been sung, Theo Rhys’s “Stuffed” thoroughly establishes the tonal register it will be working in with an overly dramatic, archly comedic introduction to the world and its main characters, two isolated individuals living in a world that wants nothing to do with them, one of whom already feels the same (that’d be Jodie Comer’s goth taxidermist, introduced dragging a very large dead animal off the road) and one of whom is just about to get there (that’d be Harry Melling’s nondescript sandwich factory worker, introduced bringing his own 10-year workaversary cake to the job).
When the opening number officially begins, Rhys and co-writer/composer Joss Holden-Rea let loose both their oddball sense of humor and the film’s emotional throughline, as the residents of a retirement home sing about how their families and friends will remember them. A lovely sentiment, but there’s only one name on the home’s list of visitors: Bernie Marshall (Melling), a sadsack who has worked for a decade making cheese sandwiches on a factory assembly line. He visits his mother every day to watch their favorite television show, “Everyday Stories, Extraordinary Lives,” but Mrs. Marshall’s dementia has progressed to the point where she doesn’t always recognize her own son, leaving Bernie feeling even more alone. Wanting to do something to prove that he’s lived, Bernie answers a newspaper ad looking for people who want to be extraordinary. The ad turns out to have been placed by Araminta (Comer), a mortician and amateur taxidermist who has always wanted to permanently stuff a human. She thinks Bernie may be the perfect subject, but in reality, they’re each other’s perfect match: Someone who understands them, and who they understand in return. But will these two lonely people wake up to the possible love that’s staring them in the face before it’s too late?
Rhys and Holden-Rea’s screenplay is one of the most tonally unique books ever written for a musical. Still, the influence of Stephen Sondheim’s “Sweeney Todd” looms large, especially in the musical score’s grandiose horror leanings. The black-as-pitch humor has a macabre quality that also brings “Sweeney” to mind, as does the charged relationship between the leads. Even with that heavy influence, though, “Stuffed” is very much its own beast, with idiosyncratic bits and lines of dialogue that don’t feel like anything else. Underneath all that macabre sensibility, however, lies something genuinely tender, an acknowledgment that all we really want as humans is to leave some indelible mark on the world before we leave it, some proof that we were here and that we meant something, even if only to one other person. That’s part of why Bernie collects obituaries of other Bernies, both to remember them and to remind us that one needn’t go on grand adventures or be an important figure to be remembered by others. But the promise of being the first human being to be taxidermied, and thus, to live forever, turns out to be an adventure that Bernie wants to take… until he realizes that he’s in love with Araminta.
As important as the movie’s tonal consistency is to making it work, it’s so unique that many audience members might be turned off. Thankfully, Comer and Melling are locked in, fully committed to their oddball characters, warts and all. While their singing feels closer to Jacques Demy/“La La Land” territory than Broadway, they infuse so much character into it that it works (and they can hit the notes, even if there is some obvious assistance here and there). Comer especially leans into Araminta’s inner psyche, using every shade of her voice to paint a full picture of a woman the screenplay pointedly leaves some gaps in. We already know she’s a whiz at accents, but the way she wraps her voice around Holden-Rea’s wordy, complicated songs sounds like a dream. Araminta has wanted to stuff a person for so long that she doesn’t know what to do with herself when she starts feeling things for her subject, and Comer’s reaction to Bernie’s declaration of love is hilariously on-point, capturing all of Araminta’s conflicting feelings while walking an incredibly tricky tonal line. Melling’s innate sweetness is the perfect foil to Comer’s steeliness; the way his eyes eventually light up when he starts seeing things Araminta’s way says everything about what Bernie has needed for so long. While Comer may be more successful with a trickier part, Melling’s big number is the kind that earns mid-film applause, and his go-for-broke performance is the cherry on top.
Melling and Comer are so good that they paper over most of the film’s issues. The musical score is often too high in the mix, rendering some of the lyrics difficult to hear, but the performances ring so emotionally true that you get the gist. There’s a lot about the characters’ pasts that the screenplay doesn’t flesh out as much as it could, but their characterizations are so strong that we can feel everything we need to know about who these people are. The film’s biggest problem – its pacing, which often goes slack in between musical numbers – isn’t something the performers can do much about. However, their individual performances remain compelling throughout, even though they’re at their best when they share the screen. The film is essentially one long march to an inevitable end, which can make it feel a bit drawn out at 117 minutes, but its overall uniqueness keeps it alive. There’s a surprising vibrancy to the dark subject matter that feels like a breath of fresh air – both cinematically and musically. There isn’t anything else out there quite like “Stuffed,” and that’s reason alone to see it. The fact that it’s so singular while also being a flat-out fantastic musical makes it a must-see, even if its oddball humor may not be on your wavelength.
