Prospero | The past is still close

Ben Wheatley’s adaptation of “Rebecca” is slick and sumptuous

But much like its heroine, it is haunted by its predecessor

By N.B.

DAPHNE DU MAURIER’S gothic bestseller, “Rebecca”, tells the story of an innocent young woman who meets a wealthy widower in Monte Carlo. After a whirlwind romance, he whisks her back to his estate in Cornwall, but she soon gets the feeling that she will never be able to match the legendary beauty and sophistication of his late wife, the titular Rebecca. That plot is currently being mirrored by a new adaptation of the novel, directed by Ben Wheatley and starring Lily James and Armie Hammer, released on Netflix on October 21st. The last big-screen version was released in 1940, directed by Alfred Hitchcock and starred Joan Fontaine and Laurence Olivier. Can anyone love Mr Wheatley’s film, or is it doomed to be overshadowed by its revered predecessor?

Both begin with the same much-quoted opening line—“Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again”—as a camera glides through the overgrown grounds of a stately home. Both then jump back to the Riviera, but this is where the new “Rebecca” shows off what distinguishes it from the old one: golden sunshine, colourful costumes and the lavish production values shared by “Ratched”, “Hollywood” and all the other Netflix films and programmes set in the mid-20th century.

In mood as well as in visuals, Mr Wheatley’s “Rebecca” is sunnier than Hitchock’s. In the earlier film, when the unnamed heroine first spots Maxim de Winter he is standing on a cliff edge, seemingly about to step off. When she sees him again in their luxury hotel, he is so rude that she must have been tempted to check out the next morning. Even after they get together, Maxim asks her to promise “never to be 36 years old”, and says of her: “You can’t be too careful with children.” He is as much a kidnapper as a suitor.

Eighty years on, Mr Hammer’s Maxim, in his bright yellow suit, is warmer, friendlier and generally less deserving of a dose of pepper spray. For her part, Ms James’s heroine departs from Ms Fontaine’s in that she is allowed to express herself in conversation. She and Maxim actually enjoy each other’s company. They also connect in the bedroom—and on the beach for that matter, a point which was not at all clear back in 1940. Hitchcock’s “Rebecca” tells the viewer that the heroine falls in love with Maxim. Mr Wheatley’s “Rebecca” shows them.

The trouble with this tender Monte Carlo idyll is that it reduces the tension once the second Mrs de Winter is installed at Manderley. She is haunted by her fear that Maxim can never love her the way he loved Mrs de Winter mark one, but it’s already pretty clear that he does. On the plus side, Manderley looks fabulous: so vast and crammed with antiques that its new resident seems less like the mistress of the house than a visiting student who has been locked in a museum overnight. Mr Wheatley’s film also benefits from Kristin Scott Thomas, perfectly cast as the resentful housekeeper, Mrs Danvers. She is so cool, calm and collected that the heroine wouldn’t dare contradict her, but her frosty hauteur is shaded by her awareness of her own place in the social order.

Still, this film, more than Hitchcock’s, is all about its heroine. Ms James is perfect as a nervous, fluttering girl who grows steelier and more proactive in the story’s last act, even if its courtroom revelations are as corny as they always were. Mr Wheatley and his team make a few other small updates. They add below-stairs scenes to emphasise the class division, and afford a hint of sympathy for Rebecca herself, who chose not to live by patriarchal society’s rules.

But in general the new “Rebecca” is so similar to the old one that it could be a production of the same play, or even a hand-tinted re-edit of the same film. The three writers, Jane Goldman, Joe Shrapnel and Anna Waterhouse, haven’t brought much to the scenario that wasn’t there 80 years ago. Nor do they ask the questions which will occur to most 21st-century viewers, such as how healthy it is to marry an older widower you have just met, or how moral it is to cover up a murder.

What is more surprising is that Mr Wheatley hasn’t pushed the sex and violence any further: Netflix productions aren’t usually so coy on either score. If you didn’t know who had directed this slick and handsome costume drama, you wouldn’t guess that it was the man behind such experimental low-budget weirdness as “Kill List” and “High Rise”. Mr Wheatley’s film offers a delicious evening of sumptuous entertainment, but, like its heroine, it has a hard time shaking off memories of Hitchcock’s “Rebecca”.

“Rebecca” is streaming on Netflix now

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