"Last night I dreamed I went to Manderley again". Again.
I was excited when I heard that Ben Wheatley was going to direct a remake of Rebecca. His last film, High-Rise showed that he has at least an unusual approach to adaptation, even if that film was ultimately a bit of a mess.
The question is which Ben Wheatley would show up? The one of early spooky ambiguity Kill List? Or the mushroom-popping psychedelic weirdness of A Field In England? Or who made the low-key blackly funny The Sightseers? Or the completely over-the-top shoot-'em-up Free Fire?
Well, none of those really. What is most striking about this new take on the Hitchcock classic is how relatively straight and safe it is.
The story is of a naive young woman who meets and marries and older dominating man and upon being taken back to his extravagent ancestral home, Manderley, finds he is still mourning for his dead first wife (the titular Rebecca) and there is a very creepy housekeeper determined to make her life miserable and even drive her to suicide.
This production is certainly lavish but by stripping back a lot of the exaggerated melodrama of the Hitchcock film the result here comes across rather like a slightly flat TV movie.
It doesn't help that both Armie Hammer and Lily James seem to lack whatever it takes to make their characters interesting. He is Maxim De Winter, just as brusque and dominating as Olivier was in the original but here it comes across as brooding boorishness. He also, to my eyes, never actually comes across as English, which is something Englishman Wheatley must have been on the lookout for. Was his casting more than a commercial decision?
As to James' unnamed narrator, she starts the film suitably simpering and uncertain but as she becomes more active (this film gives her more to do when she learns Maxim's secret) the development in her character is poorly flagged and gets lost in the drama.
Kirsten Scott Thomas on the other hand is very English as the evil housekeeper Mrs Danvers, though her convincing take is less unsettling than the weird supernatural stillness that Judith Anderson previously brought to the role.
I found this unsatisfying in many ways.
The major change – reflecting the book – is actually relatively
unimportant in the great scheme of things and there seems little
emphasis placed on the dubious nature of Maxim's character. To get the mix of danger and appeal required for Maxim is a hard balance and one not found here. Meanwhile, a tacked-on ending for Mrs Danvers just adds an extra
scene without bringing any extra tension.
Actually, I might watch this again because I feel I must have missed something. There should be something more, something better, lurking in this film. Or was Ben Wheatley just acting as director for hire? I see his upcoming slate of movies includes Tomb Raider 2 and Meg 2: The Trench, something of a change from his strikingly original early English films.
(I actually watched the Hitchcock original again afterwards. It is clearly the least "Hitchcock" of all his films, owing more to producer David Selznick's influence, but it's still - despite being clearly an artifact of its time, particularly in its attitude towards women - a whole lot more fun than the remake. It has a class and poise about it that rises above the innate silliness and still engages. (And the dresses are much better in the original!)
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