Rebecca: New Take on Classic Daphne du Maurier Tale Haunted by Hitchcock Original
By Liam Lacey
Rating: C
In Daphne du Maurier’s gothic Rebecca, a young bride must compete with the memory of her husband’s formidable late wife, Rebecca de Winter. Anyone attempting to adapt du Maurier’s novel to film faces a similar unfortunate comparison to an illustrious predecessor: Alfred Hitchcock.
A cinema milestone, Rebecca was Hitchcock’s first American studio film and won 1940’s Academy Award for best picture. It stands out both for its lushly paranoid style and casting, with Laurence Olivier as the aloof aristocrat, Maxim de Winter, Joan Fontaine as his timid new wife, and Judith Anderson as the ominous housekeeper, Mrs. Danvers.
The current film is directed by Ben Wheatley (Kill List, High Rise, A Field in England), a filmmaker who is mordantly original enough to raise hopes for a fresh twist on the gothic romance. The new Netflix version stars Lily James (Cinderella) as the young Mrs. de Winter, along with Armie Hammer as Maxim, and Kristin Scott Thomas as the Mrs. Danvers.
The new Rebecca is not intended as a Hitchcock remake. The writing team of Jane Goldman (Stardust) along with Joe Shrapnel and Anna Waterhouse, return to du Maurier’s book for elements that emphasize Maxim’s violence. If one squints and tries hard, it might be possible to interpret this study of a perverse marital bond as an indictment of the whole conventions of romance. But it’s a weak case.
The production is much closer to a Masterpiece Theatre golden-lit romantic fantasy, with lots of pricey real-estate, costume changes, and antique opulence as the backdrop for a pair of leads who always look great but never seem to break a sweat.
Early scenes, set on the French Riviera, see James’ character in Monte Carlo, a young woman with no living family who is employed as a travelling companion to the nasty older American woman, Mrs. Van Hopper (Ann Dowd).
Over the course of a few days at the resort, our heroine meets and falls for her Prince Charming, the handsome, rich Maxim de Winter with his roadster and mustard yellow suit. When Mrs. Van Hopper decides it is time to return to America, Maxim steps in and proposes marriage.
PROUDLY SUPPORTS ORIGINAL-CIN
In the next scene, the couple arrive at Maxim’s vast Cornwall cliffside estate named Manderley (production designer Sarah Greenwood blended in parts of eight country houses and estates). The new Mrs. de Winter (who, as in the novel, never gets a first name of her own) is overwhelmed by her new role as lady of the manor, with a gauntlet of servants led by the haughtily judgmental, black-clad Mrs. Danvers, whose adulation of her late mistress borders on fetishism.
Everywhere the new bride goes through the labyrinthine mansion, she finds evidence of the late Rebecca’s recent presence. When she has company, she’s subject to comparisons to the late Mrs. de Winter, loved, we are told, by men, women, and even animals. (There are even two of Rebecca’s pet spaniels that do a good impression of the twin girls in The Shining).
The thoughtless relatives — Keeley Hawes as Maxim’s sharp-witted sister, John Hollingsworth as her dim-witted husband, and Tom Goodman-Hill as the rumply, good-natured Manderley estate manager —can’t stop informing the new Mrs. de Winter about how incomparably splendid and beautiful her predecessor was.
Beautiful, but not nice. When Maxim leaves the house one day, the young Mrs. de Winter has a visit from his rakish, insinuating cousin, Jack Favell, who drops a hint about Rebecca’s past and Maxim’s violent nature. Jack is played by Sam Riley (he played singer Ian Curtis in the Joy Division bio, Control) and although Riley can’t quite match the skin-crawling unctuousness of George Sanders in the original film, he does raise the intrigue level a notch.
Otherwise, Rebecca goes through the motions, through to a courtroom drama and the melodramatic climax. Wheatley gives us one grotesque dream sequence of guests at a masquerade ball, but the rest is palely conventional. Like the character who gives the film its title, the adaptation is pretty much dead in the water.
Rebecca. Directed by Ben Wheatley. Written by Jane Goldman, Joe Shrapnel and Anna Waterhouse. Starring Lily James, Armie Hammer, Kristen Scott Thomas, Keeley Hawes, Sam Riley, Ann Dowd, Tom Goodman-Hill and John Hollingsworth. Streaming on Netflix starting October 21.