Having watched Alfred Hitchcock’s adaptation of Daphne du Maurier’s ‘Rebecca’, my hopes for Netflix’s remake were not high. Looking back, I’m glad they were not.
The novel was better than the 1940 film but at least Hitchcock did justice. Ben Wheatley, on the other hand, rushed through the story, making it look like all the actors needed were pretty clothes.
The unnamed young woman (Lily James) and Maxim de Winter (Armie Hammer) fall in love at a resort and decide to get married. They travel to beautiful islands in fancy cars and have the perfect honeymoon.
De Winter’s perfect love story with Rebecca was well-known in all of Europe. The film never fails to show how the new Mrs De Winter struggles to fill her shoes in their lavish estate, Manderley.
Mrs Danvers, played by Kristin Scott Thomas, only loved Rebecca and made sure that she backstabbed the new madame de Winter every chance she got.
Then there’s the secret the new madame learns about her husband and everyone else who keep showing up at Manderley.
Although there aren’t too many prime characters in the story, there’s no solid base to any of them. The lack of chemistry between the lead actors isn’t convincing enough.
Mrs Danvers is possibly the only interesting person in the film but even she was overshadowed by a story that moves too fast.
The original story touched heavily on class, passion, revenge and obsession, but Rebecca 2.0 is just a change of scenery in the first half and people talking in the second.
Perhaps the director wanted to look at this story in a contemporary way but the lack of grounding in the basic storyline means it cannot draw people in.