‘Stuffed’ Review: Jodie Comer and Harry Melling Sing the Body Eccentric in an Odd, and Oddly Touching, Taxidermy Musical — SkimNews
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- "Stuffed" premiered at the Toronto Film Festival as Theo Rhys' debut feature, adapted and expanded from his BAFTA-nominated short of the same name.
- Jodie Comer plays hermetic amateur taxidermist Araminta, while Harry Melling stars as friendless factory drone Bernie, who responds to her ad to be killed and preserved as an artwork.
- Joss Holden-Rea wrote the score in the style of earnest modern Broadway balladry, and the film leans into musical numbers to offset its macabre premise.
- Production designer Beck Rainford delivered Wes Anderson-style stylization with a thrift-store scruffiness, set against a working-class Northern backdrop with a perennially overcast sky.
- The review credits Comer and Melling with finding a 'calcified sadness' in the characters, noting both are capable singers who play the material straight enough to ground its extremes.
- Comer is at Toronto with two projects: "Stuffed" and the film adaptation of "Prima Facie" — the stage role that won her a Tony — now starring Cynthia Erivo on screen.
- The film draws tonal comparisons to the odd-couple romanticism of Richard Curtis and the knife-twisting adult storytelling of Roald Dahl, plus a final dose of Shakespearean fatalism.
Why it matters: The Toronto debut hands Comer a deliberate departure from the Tony-winning dramatic showcase "Prima Facie" (now starring Erivo), asking her to anchor a high-concept genre mashup where conviction, not just craft, carries the film — a calculated risk that depends almost entirely on whether audiences accept a taxidermy musical as the next evolution of British oddball romance.
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