De Winter of our content
Director and his actors deserve app lause for hitchcock remake
Cast: Lily James, Armie Hammer, Kristin Scott Thomas Director: Ben Wheatley Duration: 2 h 1 m Available: Netflix
It takes a certain chutzpah to remake Alfred Hitchcock — see Gus Van Sant’s Psycho, or any of a number of 39 Steps, not to mention Hitchcock’s own The Man Who Knew Too Much, which he made in 1934 and again in ’56. Similarly, there’s gumption in trying to re-engineer a best picture Oscar winner, though again many have tried.
So give director Ben Wheatley the 2020 brio and moxie award for doing both. Hitchcock (well, technically the studio) won his only best picture Oscar for 1940’s Rebecca, based on Daphne du Maurier’s 1938 novel, itself voted best book of the 20th and 19th centuries by British readers. Hitch’s version stars Laurence Olivier and Joan Fontaine, future Oscar- winners both. I suppose it’s possible that description also fits Armie Hammer and Lily James, starring in the remake. After all, they’re both young. And they do acquit themselves well enough. James in particular handles the part of the commoner whisked into wealth and privilege, though she did have practice in 2015’s Cinderella.
The story is simple enough: In the sunny south of France, a lady’s paid companion almost accidentally charms Maxim de Winter ( Hammer), a wealthy widower and the owner of Manderley, a grand estate on the coast of England that is a character in its own right. ( Note that Manderley is spoken in the opening line of dialogue, but we never do learn the young lady’s name.)
De Winter proposes marriage — in fact, he practically insists — and after a low-key wedding and a whirlwind honeymoon they return to Manderley. But while the house is imposing, it’s nothing next to its steely, imperious housekeeper, played with icy glee by Kristin Scott Thomas.
Up to this point, Rebecca has been almost a rom- com in the vein of Crazy Rich Asians — conspicuous consumption is all good as long as you’re in love! — but the move from sunny France to gloomy England signals a shift in gears.
Here Wheatley pushes the movie into gothic horror territory, with the new Mrs. de Winter starting to doubt her own sanity as the staff and even the grounds of the estate seem to be conspiring against her.
But there’s one more pendulum swing coming, as in the final third the movie suddenly becomes a kind of courtroom drama. The discovery of Rebecca’s body — she had died at sea — kicks off a coroner’s inquest, and suspicions begin to swirl. This is also the moment where James’s character undergoes her own metamorphoses, heralded in the scene where she’s wearing the same shade of mustard we saw on Hammer in the early going.
It’s a great romp, enlivened by sharp secondary characters. Sam Riley is particularly good as the simpering Jack Favell, played by professional scalawag George Sanders in the original. The screenplay hits all the necessary notes, in tune and on time.
I daresay I enjoyed this Rebecca even more than Hitchcock’s, which is not to say I think it’s Oscar-worthy, if that even means anything in these topsy- turvy times. The original Rebecca may have been a weak choice by the academy in 1940, a year that also gave us The Grapes of Wrath, The Philadelphia Story and The Great Dictator. But sometimes a dark, brittle drama is just what you need. Rebecca is all that. ΠΠ••