My Review- " Rebecca "
My Score 6.5 /10
I really was looking forward to this new version of Rebecca mainly because of the excellent cast that includes Lily James as the young and naive ladies maid who becomes the new Mrs De Winter and mistress of Mandalay. This is the role that earned Joan Fontaine her first Academy Award nomination in 1941. Armie Hammer is suitably dashing as the troubled Maxime De Winter Master of Mandalay the stately mansion where Rebecca ended her days. This role was one of Sir Laurence Olivier's finest Screen performances and also won him an Academy Award Best Actor nomination. Kristin Scott Thomas is very good as the deranged housekeeper of Mandalay Mrs Danvers who's obsession with her dead mistress Rebecca borders on psychotic. This role in the 1940 film version was brilliantly portrayed by Australian actress Dame Judith Anderson ,who was also nominated for Best Supporting Actress. The Original 1940 film version of Daphne Du Maurier's best selling novel Rebecca did win the Best Motion Picture Oscar of 1941 and there's a good reason why ,it's a brilliant adaptation filmed in monochrome that suits the Gothic atmosphere of the novel. This 2020 film version has been described as Downton Abbey on a bad day and I can understand why it's beautifully filmed and uses great locations but it's far from brilliant. Like the horrible 2017 remake of Daphne Du Maurier's My Cousin Rachel this version of Rebecca seems to me to be padded with new plot twists and a little dumbed down . The cast is excellent but I feel like most remakes of Classic films especially if the original was directed by Alfred Hitchcock it's almost impossible to make them work but this one is at least a good attempt. They tried it with Psycho in 1998 with Gus Van Sant directing and it was a momentous flop this version of Rebecca is much better than that horrible remake of Psycho . English Director Ben Wheatley certainly is no competition to Hitchcock and on checking his previous work I could see no justification for using him to direct such a famous remake. It's at times a quite entertaining movie ,especially if you've never seen the original but it really has nothing to justify the expense and frankly all this great talent is wasted. I did appreciate the little homage to Alfred Hitchcock's 1963 film "The Birds" , it couldn't have been accidental and did add a sense of foreboding but pleas don't remake that film. The set designs costumes and homes in this new adaptation are beautiful The first house used is the Jacobean-era Hatfield House in Hertfordshire, which was built in 1611 for Robert Cecil, a former statesman in the court of Queen Elizabeth I. Cranborne Manor in Dorset, originally built in 1207 as a hunting lodge, before being remodelled in the 17th century, also for Robert Cecil. Loseley House, situated in 1,400 acres of countryside near Guildford in Surrey Petworth House in West Sussex, a late 17th-century Grade I listed country house, rebuilt in 1688 by Charles Seymour, 6th Duke of Somerset Osterley House is Isleworth, built in the 1570s for banker Sir Thomas Gresham Mapperton House, a Jacobean manor in Devon Blegberry Farm in Devon. Shooting for the film also took place at Hartland Quay, a rocky seaside area on the North Devon coastline. Rebecca is well worth a look ,you'll enjoy the performances and the settings but I much prefer the original film. One performance I really didn't like in this movie is the casting of Ann Dowd who was so evil as Aunt Lydia Clements in The Handmaid's Tale as Mrs Van Hopper the wealthy bitchy socialite who employs our young heroine narrator as her personal assistant. It's only a brief but important role at the beginning of the film . Ann Dowd plays the character as an alcohol soaked broad and unlike Florence Bates in the original just comes across as dead common and left me wondering how she could ever have been accepted in high society.
My Score 6.5 /10
I really was looking forward to this new version of Rebecca mainly because of the excellent cast that includes Lily James as the young and naive ladies maid who becomes the new Mrs De Winter and mistress of Mandalay. This is the role that earned Joan Fontaine her first Academy Award nomination in 1941. Armie Hammer is suitably dashing as the troubled Maxime De Winter Master of Mandalay the stately mansion where Rebecca ended her days. This role was one of Sir Laurence Olivier's finest Screen performances and also won him an Academy Award Best Actor nomination. Kristin Scott Thomas is very good as the deranged housekeeper of Mandalay Mrs Danvers who's obsession with her dead mistress Rebecca borders on psychotic. This role in the 1940 film version was brilliantly portrayed by Australian actress Dame Judith Anderson ,who was also nominated for Best Supporting Actress. The Original 1940 film version of Daphne Du Maurier's best selling novel Rebecca did win the Best Motion Picture Oscar of 1941 and there's a good reason why ,it's a brilliant adaptation filmed in monochrome that suits the Gothic atmosphere of the novel. This 2020 film version has been described as Downton Abbey on a bad day and I can understand why it's beautifully filmed and uses great locations but it's far from brilliant. Like the horrible 2017 remake of Daphne Du Maurier's My Cousin Rachel this version of Rebecca seems to me to be padded with new plot twists and a little dumbed down . The cast is excellent but I feel like most remakes of Classic films especially if the original was directed by Alfred Hitchcock it's almost impossible to make them work but this one is at least a good attempt. They tried it with Psycho in 1998 with Gus Van Sant directing and it was a momentous flop this version of Rebecca is much better than that horrible remake of Psycho . English Director Ben Wheatley certainly is no competition to Hitchcock and on checking his previous work I could see no justification for using him to direct such a famous remake. It's at times a quite entertaining movie ,especially if you've never seen the original but it really has nothing to justify the expense and frankly all this great talent is wasted. I did appreciate the little homage to Alfred Hitchcock's 1963 film "The Birds" , it couldn't have been accidental and did add a sense of foreboding but pleas don't remake that film. The set designs costumes and homes in this new adaptation are beautiful The first house used is the Jacobean-era Hatfield House in Hertfordshire, which was built in 1611 for Robert Cecil, a former statesman in the court of Queen Elizabeth I. Cranborne Manor in Dorset, originally built in 1207 as a hunting lodge, before being remodelled in the 17th century, also for Robert Cecil. Loseley House, situated in 1,400 acres of countryside near Guildford in Surrey Petworth House in West Sussex, a late 17th-century Grade I listed country house, rebuilt in 1688 by Charles Seymour, 6th Duke of Somerset Osterley House is Isleworth, built in the 1570s for banker Sir Thomas Gresham Mapperton House, a Jacobean manor in Devon Blegberry Farm in Devon. Shooting for the film also took place at Hartland Quay, a rocky seaside area on the North Devon coastline. Rebecca is well worth a look ,you'll enjoy the performances and the settings but I much prefer the original film. One performance I really didn't like in this movie is the casting of Ann Dowd who was so evil as Aunt Lydia Clements in The Handmaid's Tale as Mrs Van Hopper the wealthy bitchy socialite who employs our young heroine narrator as her personal assistant. It's only a brief but important role at the beginning of the film . Ann Dowd plays the character as an alcohol soaked broad and unlike Florence Bates in the original just comes across as dead common and left me wondering how she could ever have been accepted in high society.