![]() Danvers’ allegiances, you see, still lie with the late Rebecca. In an inspired bit of casting, Kristin Scott Thomas plays the dour Mrs Danvers, determined, as ever, to not allow the new Mrs de Winter to establish herself as the woman of the house. It’s the sort of film that you could pause at virtually any moment, rip out the random frame and post it on your Instagram stories without so much as a sneaky edit. And it’s all very pretty - Rebecca is a dazzlingly pretty movie starring distractingly pretty people. ![]() It is in Manderley’s cavernous bedrooms and vacant hallways, and along its lush lawns and beautiful beaches that most of the narrative unfolds. She’s never seen, but her spectre haunts every scene, summoned as it is at remarkable regularity by Mrs Danvers, the housekeeper of de Winters’ sprawling estate, Manderley. De Winter is a widower, visibly struggling with the death of his first wife, Rebecca. Call it what you want - a re-imagining, a reboot, a re-adaptation - just don’t call it a ‘remake’.īut try as he might to distance himself from Hitchcock’s Oscar-winning classic, neither Wheatley nor his cast and crew can shake off the comparisons that will inevitably follow.īoth films begin in Monte Carlo, where an unnamed young woman (played by a feisty Lily James) and the reclusive rich-boy Maxim de Winter (a dull Armie Hammer) embark on a whirlwind romance that ends at the altar. This is the fashionable thing to say a convenient clause invoked by everyone from the Coen Brothers (True Grit) to Tim Burton (Charlie and the Chocolate Factory). Those involved in making Rebecca 2.0 insist that it isn’t a remake, but rather a new adaptation of du Maurier’s novel. ![]() The new Rebecca, based on this yardstick alone, is a lot like Baz Luhrmann’s flamboyant The Great Gatsby, although that film captured the spirit of the source material more successfully than most give it credit for. It’s breathtakingly shot by Wheatley’s regular cinematographer Laurie Rose, and luxuriously scored by Clint Mansell - an effect that gives it the impression of being designed for distribution not on Netflix, but on Instagram. Perhaps that is why Wheatley concerns himself more with the bells and whistles than finding a beating heart. Perhaps that is why the film seems more preoccupied with the costumes than the drama. But Ben Wheatley is no Alfred Hitchcock, and his Rebecca is merely a mannequin, a plastic attraction lacking a soul. And now, in 2020, another UK filmmaker with a penchant for the unpleasant has come knocking on Hollywood’s door. Cast: Lily James, Armie Hammer, Kristin Scott Thomas, Sam Riley Rebecca movie review: Lily James as Mrs de Winter and Armie Hammer as Maxim de Winter in a still from the new Netflix film.(Kerry Brown / Netflix)Įight decades ago, an idiosyncratic British director was summoned to Hollywood, where as his first project, he was tasked with making an adaptation of the hottest new novel on the shelves: Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca.
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