‘Stuffed’ Review: Jodie Comer and Harry Melling Star in a Bizarre Taxidermy Musical

It takes a little time for Theo Rhys’s debut feature to find its rhythm, and for the audience to adjust, but the film ultimately offers distinctive and unexpectedly humane rewards.

The timing of its Toronto premiere is notable given the concurrent screening of “Prima Facie,” the screen adaptation of the stage hit for which Jodie Comer won a Tony last year. While “Prima Facie” allows Comer to dazzle a broad audience with her established dramatic prowess, “Stuffed” targets a more niche viewership with a showcase of abilities few knew she possessed: Broadway-caliber musical emoting in a macabre pop-opera centered on a romance conducted through the art of taxidermy. The film earns credit for its risk-taking, and Comer delivers with total conviction. In high-wire, high-concept pieces like this, the story rests entirely on the actors’ commitment, and Comer plays every moment from the gut.

Harry Melling matches her intensity, continuing a trend of starring in unlikely British indie love stories following his role in last year’s romantic comedy “Pillion.” His appearance as an unconventional leading man—characterized by a slightly crumpled face and an expression of forlorn, puppyish vulnerability—carries much of the film’s comedic and tragic weight. Playing Bernie, a friendless factory worker who fascinates Araminta (Comer), a reclusive amateur taxidermist who finds herself drawn to his features, Melling anchors this endearingly bizarre debut adapted and expanded from Rhys’s BAFTA-nominated short.

The premise initially suggests body horror of the most morbid variety. A woman obsessed with preserving a human body advertises for a volunteer to be killed and turned into a fleshly artwork; a man who feels invisible while alive steps forward, believing that being stuffed will finally make him seen. While David Cronenberg might have rendered such an idea with vivid disturbance and intimate sensuality, Rhys’s film achieves something closer to “sweet,” maintaining a tone of sweetness even as its atmosphere of physical and psychological decay occasionally turns the stomach.

The decision to frame the narrative as a musical might initially seem like a tongue-in-cheek stunt, but it is bolstered by the plaintive lyricism of writer-composer Joss Holden-Rea. The score draws heavy inspiration from earnest modern Broadway balladry. Although the soundtrack could benefit from a few more memorable tunes, its sincerity provides a necessary grounding for a film so deeply rooted in extreme strangeness.

Rhys and Holden-Rea take time to strike a balance between the violent eccentricity of the premise and a potential for baroque British whimsy. Early sequences depict Bernie’s monotonous life at a sandwich factory with a fairytale-like naïveté, complemented by Wes Anderson-esque production design from Beck Rainford. However, as the film delves deeper into the characters’ lives, the tone becomes more authentic. Bernie is revealed to be a socially awkward introvert returning care to the single mother who raised him, now facing his own loneliness as she slips into dementia. When she no longer recognizes him, his only connection to another human being fades. Araminta, conversely, maintains a confident, creatively aloof isolation. When Bernie responds to her advertisement, he is stunned that someone so striking and alluring desires his body, even through formaldehyde; she effectively flatters him into a death wish.

As the pair spend time mapping out the specifics of his demise and preservation, they transform from intriguing strangers into lonely confidants, with mutual curiosity blossoming into affection. This evolution challenges the gruesome project that originally bound them. The script, deftly expanded from its shorter origins, navigates the relationship through stages reflecting the odd-couple romanticism of Richard Curtis and the knife-twisting storytelling of Roald Dahl, culminating in a dose of Shakespearean fatalism.

The narrative succeeds largely because Comer and Melling are genuinely committed. Both capable singers, they acknowledge the kitsch excesses of the horror, melodrama, and musical elements—including Holly Rebecca’s mothballed costumes—while playing the emotions straight. Together, they uncover a deep, calcified sadness in these outliers, a desperate need to do something extraordinary, and a giddy flicker of empathetic self-recognition. It is this sadness and subsequent relief that dignifies their demented mission, making “Stuffed” a more poignant ode to human embalming than one might anticipate.