Giving Daphne du Maurier’s tragic, gothic romance a contemporary coat of paint, Ben Wheatley helms the latest take on her novel Rebecca and casts Armie Hammer and Lily James in the roles that Laurence Olivier and Joan Fontaine ate up in Hitchcock’s Oscar-winning 1940’s adaptation.
Rebecca is one of those stories that seems so hard to capture on film, a “show, don’t tell” page-turner in which the haunting is in the little words and the shimmering presence of its leading lady. Yet, somehow, Alfred Hitchcock managed to craft something ethereal and chilling with his spin on the source material – the quintessential “book to film” adaptation. So good in fact that it’s head-scratching to know why anyone would dare meddle with either the du Maurier or Hithcock versions. In some respects, Wheatley seems like the only pick to steer any sort of remake with the flashy filmmaking techniques to make it work. But the issue with Netflix’s latest is that it feels like anything but a Wheatley film.
Hammer is Max de Winter, an eccentric Englishman holidaying in the French Rivera, haunted by the mysterious death of his wife Rebecca. And James is the nameless narrator that sparks up a companionship with de Winter in the Côte d’Azur. The pair get married and James trades in a mundane life for his decadent estate: the Manderley. But Rebecca’s presence echoes throughout its extravagant walls and the mansion’s caretaker, Mrs Danvers (Kristin Scott Thomas), refuses to let the memory of Max’s late wife die at any cost.
James, Hammer, and Scott Thomas seem like good casting choices on the surface; Hammer, especially, has the presence to play the aristocratic role well. It’s a shame, then, that the only good performance of the three comes from an icy Scott Thomas. Both Hammer and James are seemingly miscast as they struggle to fit into the chilling world of de Maurier’s novel. It’s disappointing because they’re capable actors but they’re awkward and emotionless here, not to mention the fact that their chemistry is non-existent. There’s no likability to either of their characters and it makes for very uninvolving tension at the core of it all.
To Wheatley’s credit: Rebecca is faithfully adapted, following the plot of the book identically. He has managed to take her 20th-century gothic romance and give it a modern coat of paint and it’s immaculately designed – the costumes and sets are lavish and Hammer’s three-piece mustard suit, especially, is gorgeous. But this is a ghost story and you barely feel the presence of Rebecca once. Clunky acting and a script devoid of any nuance or depth mean that Netflix’s trepid chamber piece is less a ghostly psychodrama and more a tame retread of a shopworn story that is, frankly, just a bore.
Rebecca
Summary
Faithfully adapted, but sadly devoid of any nuance or depth.
