The casting was wrong. But Wheatley's adaptation crowns a villain worthy of the antihero era in its final frame. Through Lynch, her grandmother taught her how to spot “The Girl,” and through Frankenstein, her grandfather taught her how to love in spite of fear. The latest adaptation of Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca is “bland”, argues Caryn James, who writes that this film “feels as if someone at Downton Abbey were having a bad day”. More like this:- Why Daphne du Maurier was Britain’s mistress of suspense- What are the best first lines in fiction?- Why film and TV get Paris so wrong. And if you liked this story, sign up for the weekly bbc.com features newsletter, called The Essential List. For a long time, it felt like I was the only person on the internet rooting for Ben Wheatley’s adaptation of Rebecca. Turns out the internet had the right idea about new Rebecca! The film's spooky elements, ramped up from both the novel and the Hitchcock adaptation, become a Trojan horse for the chilling reality of heterosexual marriage in the hyper-stratified world of early 20th century England. The narrator's hairbrush still has strands of Rebecca's dark hairs nestled among the bristles. This is a problem on a script level, though, and not any fault of Scott-Thomas’s. Director Ben Wheatley, known for dark, stylish and sometimes violent films including High-Rise (2015), always seemed like an odd choice to direct. Finding the heroine in Rebecca’s bedroom, kept as if she were alive with her nightgown on the bed, Mrs Danvers urges her to touch how soft it is, terrifying the heroine with her intensity. The Gothic plot is enough to make the novel work, but the themes of self-doubt and a marriage fraught with secrets are what make it endure, and such a rich source for adaptation. The love affair begins with a hint of this paternalism when the adorably unsophisticated narrator is turned away from a fancy restaurant terrace on the sun-dappled shores of southern France. We delete comments that violate our policy, which we encourage you to read. How could she compete with a ghost? One point in its favor (and which carries the whole film) is the excellent cast, supported by a script from Jane Goldman that understands the characters in ways that sometimes become a little eroded when making the transition from page to film. There's even a carnivalesque masquerade scene that leads the audience to question, for just a moment, whether this really is a ghost story. Maxim seduces the narrator -- and the audience -- with some very sexy, very sandy premarital beach romps, but the film soon darkens as James' narrator marries and then follows her increasingly smarmy new husband to his sprawling English estate. Perhaps it's the ghoulish head housekeeper Mrs. Danvers (played here by a shade-throwing Kristin Scott Thomas) who makes the nameless protagonist's married life hell. Horror? Maxim comes gallantly to her rescue (with a whiff of Hammer's signature Winklevii) by inviting her to share his table. Aly Caviness is lifelong film obsessive, co-founder of Midwest Film Journal, and member of the Indiana Film Journalists Association. Superfluous situations are added to heighten the tension and drama (which achieve neither), and what should be a tragic and eerie climax is ruined by a serious and unnecessary deviation from Mrs. Danvers’ downfall. In the year 2020, I am definitely not interested in rehashing the usual condescending paternalism Maxim deploys against the second Mrs. de Winter, and it’s refreshing that this version replaces it with a genuine and clear love that is often absent in various portrayals of their relationship. and Wheatley's new adaptation further complicates the viewer's moral acrobatics. Female servants revel in the narrator's stumbles up society's ladder. Mrs. Danvers, whose machinations in the novel target the narrator directly, does one better in the film, instead tricking other women into doing her dirty work. The film sleepwalks through other scenes meant to be tense, though. In Rebecca's case, the real horror is that marriage is sold to women as an aspiration when it's actually more of a necessary evil, and the story unfolds with the sinister repercussions of the narrator's irrevocable choices. In fact, for much of its runtime, the film understands that you can’t have one without the other because class informs so much of the second Mrs. de Winter’s feelings about Rebecca’s lingering presence in Manderley. Rebecca 2020 PG-13 2h 3m Romantic Movies A young newlywed moves to her husband's imposing estate, where she must contend with his sinister housekeeper and the haunting shadow of his late wife. It isn’t a traditional ghost that haunts her new home’s halls, but a ghost of perceived perfection — Rebecca, with her perfect breeding, perfect beauty, perfect taste and perfect life, to which the second Mrs. de Winter can barely compare. Indeed, the last third of the movie is so rote and uninspiring that it unfortunately renders the entire thing a waste of time. Check here to see if it's been restocked, Best Amazon Black Friday 2020 deals available now: $100 smart TV, Apple Watch savings and home DNA test discounts, Discuss: Rebecca review: In 2020 Netflix adaptation, marriage is the real horror, Oscar-winning 1940 Alfred Hitchcock film adaptation, roundup of scary-but-not-too-scary Halloween movies, Halloween movies to stream on Netflix, Hulu, Disney Plus and more, Best Halloween kids movies for spooky streaming, Monsterland horror anthology blurs the lines between humans, monsters, Love and Monsters review: Dylan O'Brien stars in a PG-rated Zombieland. Like 2017's Get Out and 2019's Parasite, Rebecca serves up a spoonful of horror to make the social commentary go down. You can't remarry now," she taunts. The film even lends itself to a feminist reading, with the heroine a woman who learns to come into her own. But this brief, elliptical opening seems like an obligation, not an ominous clue. She throws Manderley’s customary costume ball and makes a terrible faux pas. Or perhaps Lily James' unnamed narrator and protagonist, known only as "the second Mrs. de Winter," isn't as virtuous as she seems. When he asks her to come to Manderley with him, she wonders, “As your secretary?” and he recites one of the novel’s notable lines: “I’m asking you to marry me, you little fool.” The screenplay has wiped out most of the other period touches that wouldn’t have raised an eyebrow in the 30s. James, with a blonde bob and a tentative manner, effectively makes her love-struck as they drive along the sparkling coast, and innocent enough to ignore warning signs about Maxim’s past. What I wouldn’t give for Manderley to get the Hill House / Bly Manor treatment. Even her name isn't her own: While many brides struggle to get used to the Mrs. moniker, the second Mrs. de Winter must subsume the same name as her husband's lost love. You can’t blame the heroine for falling for the excitement he offers, though. Walmart Black Friday 2020 deals start Nov. 25: Latest ad reveals $119 Apple Watch, $15 Switch games and more, PS5 inventory at Walmart? There aren't any ghosts, but the schadenfreude will chill you to the bone. When the second Mrs de Winter learns the facts of Rebecca’s life and death, we see that she has lost her innocence. Both its announcement and its trailer drop garnered universal derision on Twitter dot com, mostly stemming from the fact that Wheatley, in his utter foolishness, had the gall to remake a Hitchcock movie. Soon we are in Monte Carlo, where the heroine is travelling as paid companion to the gauche American Mrs Van Hopper (the well-cast Ann Dowd). “Rebecca was a book first!” Sure, some detractors knew that, but no one really seemed to care. Alfred Hitchcock’s 1940 film has become a classic, of course: a psychological thriller that brilliantly translated the novel’s Gothic atmosphere to the screen, demonstrating how well Du Maurier’s story could morph over time. He is boring but he is also tall, and against the latter I am sadly powerless. It fails because it is actually a perfect adaptation of Rebecca — the novel by Daphne du Maurier, not the 1940 film by Alfred Hitchcock — until it suddenly isn’t. Schadenfreude personified -- monsterified. Be respectful, keep it civil and stay on topic. Directed by Vaughn Stein. Casting Maxim as a younger man is also an unexpected stroke of genius from Wheatley. Why Daphne du Maurier was Britain’s mistress of suspense. Several years before, she had discovered letters to her husband from his beautiful former fiancée, who had taken her own life. But the scariest thing in the film is a cruel reality check from Mrs. Danvers: "He'll leave you, he'll divorce you. There’s a difference between hiding something and just being dull. Love film and TV? It fails because it is actually a perfect adaptation of Rebecca — the novel by Daphne du Maurier, not the 1940 film by Alfred Hitchcock — until it suddenly isn’t. And regarding Maxim: I enjoy Armie Hammer as an actor about as much as I enjoy other people dunking on him (which is to say: a lot).