Movie Review - Rebecca (2020)

This year marks the 80th anniversary of Alfred Hitchcock's Rebecca (1940), the only film from the acclaimed, British director to win the Academy Award for Best Picture. That 1940 classic was nominated for 11 Oscars total, so doing a remake is going to draw comparisons. Having recently watched the 1940 version, it's easy for me to say that that 1940 film was the superior version. It's not to say that there aren't bits to this newer version that are admirable but those bits are also predictable, given that this film has clearly been made with a modern-day lens. Other than having a modern-day look, having been shot on location, and other than having a modern-day sensibility, the film doesn't really improve upon what Hitchcock so brilliantly did.

Lily James (Darkest Hour and Cinderella) stars as an unnamed woman who works as a paid companion to a wealthy, older lady. Currently, she's in the south of France, assisting the older lady who's seemingly on vacation. We don't get much about this woman's back story, besides the obvious fact that she doesn't come from a wealthy family herself. Her background is meager. She's never had or ever really been around anyone with a lot of money or any kind of fortune. In the 1940 version, she talked about her father being a painter who liked painting trees, but we don't get much more than that here.

Armie Hammer (Call Me By Your Name and The Social Network) co-stars as Maxim de Winter, a man who is the opposite. He comes from a line of people with a lot of money or a kind of fortune that most couldn't even dream up. He currently lives and owns a large estate with a large mansion called Manderlay, somewhere in the countryside of England. He's also seemingly on vacation in France where he encounters the young woman. At first, he seems to prefer to be alone, but the obvious bigotry and mistreatment of the woman because she's poor or because she's a servant causes him to come to her rescue.

As a result, Maxim and the young woman begin to spend more time together. They have a whirlwind romance that doesn't feel as whirlwind as in the Hitchcock film. This could be seen as an improvement because the relationship between Maxim and the young woman in the 1940 film felt a tad rushed, though that may have been the point. Fortunately, the actors in the 1940 film, that of Laurence Olivier and Joan Fontaine, sell the relationship, but having something beyond their performances would've been helpful. The two characters jumping into marriage so fast felt a little more organic here than in Hitchcock's take.

Kristin Scott Thomas (Darkest Hour and The English Patient) also co-stars as Mrs. Danvers, the housekeeper for Manderlay or the woman who manages the other servants and maintains the cleaning and cooking for all at the estate, as well as other things. When it comes to bigotry and mistreatment to Maxim's new wife based on her being poor or being from a lower social class, Mrs. Danvers is the queen. At best, Mrs. Danvers is a snob. At worst, she's hateful, but the reason she's so has to do with Maxim's previous wife.

The title of the film is in fact a reference to Maxim's previous wife. It's revealed that Maxim was married to Rebecca who died before the film started. Throughout the film, mainly through Mrs. Danvers, Rebecca is propped up as a paragon, as the perfect woman and spouse. The film explores the anxiety and frustration that someone might feel, if they had to compete with such a paragon, with such a perfect memory of a person. It's possibly the anxiety that any second wife would feel. That anxiety forms the basis of what could have been an interesting psychological horror film. Director Ben Wheatley seemingly attempts to lean into that horror, but it's not consistent enough. The film also explores or reinforces the sexism that women have faced and the limited options they have when they don't have money. Classism is clearly a strong theme in that regard in both this and Hitchcock's version.

Unfortunately, the film doesn't dig into Mrs. Danvers' past or history in a way to make us understand why she would be so hateful toward Maxim's new wife. It's one thing for her to look down on her, but Mrs. Danvers takes active steps to end Maxim's marriage with his new wife and to end the life of the young woman, meaning possibly kill her. For Mrs. Danvers' to be that villainous, a deeper dive into her would have been appreciated. A cousin and sexual partner to the late Rebecca is Jack Favell, played by Sam Riley (Maleficent and On the Road). His actions to thwart Maxim's new wife and indeed Maxim himself is understandable because he's a relative and again revealed to be a sexual partner to Rebecca. Yet, Mrs. Danvers' actions aren't understandable, unless she was a secret lover of Rebecca too, which is hinted but never explicated.

Remaining on the surface of these characters is something that's indicative of this film's flaws. Not only do we not dive deeper into who Mrs. Danvers is, a fact that becomes visually ironic by the end, but we also don't really dive deep into who Maxim's new wife is. She can only be referred to as Maxim's new wife because her name, including her maiden name is never revealed in the film. Maxim's new wife not having a name goes back to the 1940 version and probably back to the novel by Daphne du Maurier that inspired all of this. This is probably to signify how Maxim's new wife's identity becomes so much wrapped up in her husband, as most women's identities do. This begs the question though of what this new film is trying to say about that.

The thrust in the second half of this film is a police investigation where people, particularly Jack, accuse Maxim of possibly murdering Rebecca. In the 1940 version, Maxim isn't technically arrested, and he's very much involved with the investigation to prove his innocence and not be found guilty. His new wife takes a backseat and simply accompanies him. She's supportive but doesn't have an active role. In this new version, Maxim is arrested and the last act becomes all about Maxim's new wife trying to investigate Rebecca's death by herself practically. This makes the film seem more feminist or more empowering to women, which is certainly a modern-day sensibility. If that's the case, then there's a question that arises as to why she would bother to investigate and basically defend her husband at all.

Spoiler alert! Spoiler alert! Spoiler alert!

While Maxim is a sympathetic character, it's revealed that Maxim did in fact kill his wife. Maxim did in fact kill Rebecca. He shot her and then faked her death to make it seem like she committed suicide. Now, in the 1940 version, Rebecca's death was an accident. Yes, Maxim did manipulate things in order to avoid certain inquiries, but he didn't kill her. Yet, Maxim, as portrayed by Olivier, seemed more tortured or torn up about it. The writing here might be endemic, but Hammer's performance as Maxim does little to convince me of that tortured or torn up nature that Maxim needs to sell what he did, especially if in this version, he's really a murderer. An actor like Richard Madden or Kit Harington might have been better suited to sell that aspect.

Yet, that doesn't quite convince me of why Maxim's new wife would do what she does. In the 1940 version, she was defending an innocent man from being railroaded. Here, she's trying to cover up for a killer who cares more about status and reputation rather than Rebecca's life. There's an argument that his killing her was better than divorcing her because of what that would do to her socially, but that argument isn't reinforced as well as it could have been here. Yes, it's revealed that Rebecca was cheating on him, but that's not enough motivation or if it was, Hammer's performance doesn't sell it well enough. Yes, Rebecca had an incurable cancer, but Maxim didn't know that at the time of her death, so it's not as if it were euthanasia on his part. Therefore, I don't get why Maxim's new wife would defend him or stay with him after he confesses to her what he did. Yes, it's supposed to be indicative of how much she loves Maxim, as well as being indicative of how much she's lost her innocence and naivety about the world, but again the film doesn't do enough to sell us on that point, not in the writing or in James' performance.

Rated PG-13 for sexual content, partial nudity and smoking.
Running Time: 2 hrs. and 3 mins.

Available on Netflix.