Remake of "Rebecca" royally trashed in review

Are there lesbian undertones in the DuMaurier original story?

Did anyone actually think it might be good??

While he compares this new version to Hitchcock's version, he ignores the 1997 PBS version starring Charles Dance as Maxim, Emilia Fox as the second Mrs. DeWinter and Diana Rigg as Mrs. Danvers.

She

Thank you, R4.

My mistake.

R3 Don't forget her Fayeness as Mrs. Van Hopper!

Faye is actually good in that version.

The only reason he continues to get roles, is because he's a male Cracker! No other reason at all.

The reviewer liked Kristin Scott Thomas as Mrs Danvers but in the trailer you can see her being openly snide with the new wife. That’s a huge flaw by the writer. The entire point was that she was so subtle undermining the wife’s confidence that it took her a while to figure it out.

Is Jane Goldman wife of Jonathan Ross?

Frankly, I don't understand why anyone thought remaking a Hitchcock movie was a good idea? Weren't they thinking about remaking The Birds a dozen years ago? Thankfully, that never happened.

The story lives on independently of Hitchcock.

The only lesbian overtones are all Mrs. Danvers, in the book. They are more overt than the Hitchcock film, though she was spectacular.

I didn't even need to read this to know this, however, from the review:

[quote]Rebecca (2020) can’t manage to even touch the hem of the original.

I applaud this critic for slamming film makers who arrogantly remake classics without any idea about how to improve upon the source material or even create a decent version of what's been done before. I hope Hollywood will think twice before investing in yet another lame remake starring generic actors.

If it ain’t broke don’t fix it.

Did Joan Fontaine ever wear bangs?

Gus Van Sant's Psycho was even worse, I'll bet. Such a self indulgent exercise, when he could have made something original.

Hiya, R17!

Thanks, r19. Her acting might have disappeared, considering how much she relied on raising that one eyebrow.

Olivia de Havilland's ghost made me WW R20.

I just started it! Who else is watching it today?

Armie Hammer in his mustard suit he seems like some bizarre attempt to anthropomorphize Big Bird. Without the charisma of course.

It’s absolutely terrible. The actors don’t seem to want to be there. It’s like they are being forced to act at gunpoint.

R9, in the book Danvers is pretty shitty with the second Mrs De Winter right from the start.

Also, it's possible to make changes.

Washington Post gave it 1.5 stars out of 5.

I didn't get any lesbian undertones in the original story, r1.

David Fincher's 'Mank' (out in December) looks more promising:

The film falls apart when Kristin Scott Thomas appears it it’s fairly apparent that she can act while our “stars” a cannot. (Despite the very fine actress Ann Dowd appearing alongside Hammer and James in the first part of the movie, she apparently had been instructed to play her role as a drag queen, so I’m discounting her performance.)

Hollywood needs to be more original in its film making.

Seriously!

Wow, Ann Dowd is usually fantastic.

Also, Hammer is so bad even his “sleepwalking” is bad. He walks like he has a ten pound turd inside of him struggling to break free.

Sad, final days for Arnie's career.

Can't they remake things that were shitty in the first place, so that even a poor remake looks good?

But he’ll continue to get role after role. That’s Hollywood for ya.

Also since The Favourite it seems like everyone is using the same 17th century English interiors? I also saw it in The Great and Enola Holmes, and now here.

“This is what Armie Hammer think he looks like”

No that’s a shredding.

^now

I can totally see why R3 mistook the writer for a he. Gems like the one below would usually be said/written by a homosexual man:

[quote]She is saddled with a dry-as-hell blonde bob wig, yet even that lifeless mop has more verve than her performance.

As soon as I read that, I had to scroll back up and check the byline if the author were male or female.

I didn’t hold much hope out for this. Collins is almost as bad as Hammer.

It was really disappointing to see him cast in Death on the Nile too.

Why? Stop trying to make Armie Hammer happen. Nobody wants it.

This one as well, r39:

[quote]Both James and Hammer’s careers rest on their looks fitting into the slim parameters of institutionally accepted beauty. Not to get too Norma Desmond on you, but where are the interesting faces?

R41 hahaha...yup!

Perhaps the author is MTF?

I've ff'd a few scenes... no time to watch the whole thing... but from what very little I saw so far... it's fine. It's not a triumph but it isn't Razzie territory (except for that ridiculous mustard colour suit.) I will watch the whole thing but it's just a usual remake that didn't need to be remade. Adequate but not cringe worthy. The burning of the house is about as exciting as a bbq flare up and Mrs. Danvers exit looks like at home CGI. The Monte Carlo sequences take 25 minutes... long but I always found the Monte Carlo stuff too long. The glimpse I got of Ann Dowd's Mrs. Van Hopper seemed OK to me.. she's a nasty, pissed off bitch who knows but won't admit she looks like shit.

But the thing doesn't strike me as the train wreck in the review or that DL is determined to have.

Manderly, inside, is Hatfield House... which has been seen a lot lately. Bit odd they couldn't find better than that. Maybe they're cheap. Mother Durrell is the sister, late life Porchy from The Crown is the brother in law and much fatter than before,I wonder if the suit was padded. Prince Philip's mother from The Crown is the granny... who never makes it to this thing so that makes a change. Jane Laportiere, or some such, I'd never heard before she was Princess Kuragin on Downton but she's a fun, engaging, mischievous actress I think and it's great to see her working. Great voice, too.

Jane is a fucking legend.

[QUOTE] Sad, final days for Arnie's career.

Yeah, right. If you think Hollywood will stop trying to cram Armie Hammer down our throats, you’ve got another thing coming.

She’s not *overtly* shitty, r24. The new wife is so insecure and middle class and Mrs Danvers is all, “well this is how things have always been done in this house“ and left unspoken is “and if you were UC you’d know this”. Like sitting in the salon after breakfast (“Would Madame prefer to sit here instead of the morning room? Then I’ll have one of the maids light the fire”) or after the wife knocks over a porcelain and nervously hides the broken pieces (“If only Madame had informed me that she had broken it, I would not have blamed the maid and fired her”). Always delivered in a silky, reasonable voice.

The outside gardens (and apparently just a few of the interiors) were filmed at Mapperton. You might remember it as Julie Montagu’s family house from Ladies of London

"I applaud this critic for slamming film makers who arrogantly remake classics without any idea about how to improve upon the source material or even create a decent version of what's been done before."

It's already been remade for tv twice - which is why I don't get the pearl-clutching reviews. If you don't like remakes, don't watch them. Rebecca is hardly one of Hitchcock's best films, anyway.

The 1979 Rebecca is on youtube. Jeremy Brett was hot back then!!

So I was R44... watched it tonight. It sucked, but it wasn't a disaster, more it just fell so flat.

James and Hammer were just shy of fine it turns out... far from the worst thing about it.

But the script and then the direction just killed it. It was like the minute the ball started the tension deflated and then they just rushed through to the end... I was bored. Everything felt... very necessary and obvious in the construction. It was like two films. The first part wasn't so bad but the second part was all 'who cares?' and 'so what?'

Bad would have been a step up. It's just dull.

And I should be making violent love to you behind a palm tree.

I haven't seen the new film r47 so can't say whether KST is overdoing it but my recollection of the book is that there was something creepy and threatening about Danvers right from the start and the second Mrs de Winter's personal encounters with her are clearly threatening and a power play.

R49, according to Ben Wheatley, his Rebecca isn't a remake of the Hitchcock film but a dramatisation of the book. I also read him saying that it's a love story, which isn't how I remember the book.

I don't even want to see Armie's dick anymore...

So no one watched this last night?

It's #3 on the daily top 10 which isn't bad.

I'm not finding anything with bangs-bangs, r17. I ran across this hairstyle which looks rather "special needs"...

Apparently there's no Armie nudity in this. How does this guy stay employed?

R58 Good because he looks fat in this.

I wouldn't even think of such a fucking thing, r17.

I’m so over these awful remakes. Have we lost all creativity? Can’t we come up with anything new?

^ That's the joke of it... there are novels to dramatize everywhere. Rebecca's a great (ancient) story, but what was clamouring for a remake of Rebecca? There's plenty to choose from.

[quote]I hope Hollywood will think twice before investing in yet another lame remake starring generic actors.

Not likely. Remakes like this take care of half the studio's marketing budget, because a lot of people know the story already, and (as this thread demonstrates) they'll watch the movie just to see how well it compares with the original even if they don't have very high hopes.

"I’m so over these awful remakes."

Hollywood has always done remakes. This has already been remade for tv twice. If you don't like remakes, don't watch them

The TIMES (UK) review has a priceless headline: "Last Night I dreamed this film was good."

It was ok. Perhaps because I wasn’t expecting much I was less disappointed. KST was dreadful as Mrs Danvers though and I was surprised at that. Perhaps it was the writing but she didn’t seem to have that underlying aura of menace you would expect. She just seemed an unkind snob. Too much time spent making it look pretty and not enough time spent on the script.

It was a bad script, particularly in the second half, but I thought KST played her quite subtly and as more human than any other portrayal. But she wasn't evil, she was just impertinent... she should have been sacked.

FWIW the best version to me was the Charles Dance/Diana Rigg/Emilia Fox/Faye version. Comparatively recent enough not to be fussed about the Hayes Office nonsense but faithful enough to the film to recreate it and update it well. That's a remake... evocative of the original but unique enough to justify the trouble.

I thought KST was great

R67, it's been a while since I saw the Charles Dance/Emilia Fox version but I remember liking it at the time. One thing it got right was the age difference - de Winter is supposed to be like 20 years older than his new wife. The power dynamic isn't quite right if they're around the same age

As others have already commented, I too wonder why this was even made. The performances could only suffer by comparison to those in the original. Joan Fontaine and Laurence Olivier are among the greatest of the greats from the golden age of Hollywood. To say, nothing of Hitchcock.

However, in Armie Hammer's defense, I haven't given up on him. For many years I rooted for Ryan Reynolds. He seem to have one misfire after another. But he finally found the right vehicle, and now he is everywhere. I think there is still hope for Armie.

Laurence Olivier was a great actor in general but wrong for Maxim de Winter. He's too genteel for someone who's supposed to have a violent temper (same goes for Armie)

Joan Fontaine was just okay

I know, everyone thinks Joan Fontaine was great but her constant hand-wringing was terrible.

R50 I’ve been watching his Sherlock series lately. It’s excellent.

The Hitchcock/Selznick version is light years ahead of the new one in storytelling economy, casting, dialogue, editing and visual style. I laughed when they introduced a couple of big SFX scenes in the new one. These younger directors just can't live without some CGI, can they? Her hair looked so distractingly modern...

Wasn't that impressed with Ann Dowd's Mrs. Van Hopper, and I usually like her.

Dunaway played it much more comic and made it really delicious.

a hammer is georgous in it !!! delightful production....reviews of it were awesome in many papers.

Agreed, he looks fucking handsome. have you queens lost your minds?

Most reviews are very good.

His nips/tit in that white tank top....take me max!

Rather nasty and untrue of the OP to lead with such a trashy headline.

Opulent production..

Armie looks devishly handsome in those vintage suits.

Opulence is the wrong thing to aim for with an adaptation of this book, as is making de Winter handsome. It's just another cliche movie then, when it should be subtle, a psychological game, scary even, with a hint of evil.

It is what it is, it lives up to no predecessors or expectations, its the dream of the director and actors.

Its a georgous work of art, wish it had gone on for another hour....Im a sucker for such sumptuous visuals.

Congrats too all involved, I wasnt sure about it, but was delightfully surprised.

R76-R77 you know we can see you responding to yourself right?

He looks terrific in the suits but some are tailored poorly. The lapels on the mustard brown suit were pure amateur hour.

What does Timmy have to say?

I haven’t seen it yet but just looking at the photo at OP, the actress playing Rebecca doesn’t look right.

The book is such a great read. There’s an audio version narrated by DL fave Anna Massey.

awesome show, im gonna watch it again....!

I loved it. It was much better than Cats. I’m going to see it again and again.

Disagree with poster upthread re Olivier in the role of Maxim. Olivier was perfect: he was supposed to be moody, not threatening. If he'd been threatening, the character would have been completely unsympathetic. As it was, his aristo carelessness about his young inexperienced second wife's struggle was brought out, but just enough to lend the character something besides Victim of Sociopathic Wife. You don't get 400 pages of this classic Gothic romance novel that way.

And, Olivier's delivery of the long, uninterrupted scene in the boathouse where, halfway through you finally find out the truth about his marriage to Rebecca and was a masterpiece of drama.

Remaking this after an iconic film, one of Hitchcock's best, with a superlative cast, magnificent photography, and a gorgeous score, is just stupid. Some things are best left alone unless you have enough self-awareness to realise whether or not you have a shot at producing something that has a chance of coming up to the gold standard, as it were. Because that's what Hitchcock's "Rebecca" is - the gold standard. Some initial transfers of literature to screen end up setting a standard.

Factoid: the cast, including Olivier, was very condescending to the young Fontaine, whose first big role this was - until they saw the rushes. From Fontaine to Olivier to Sanders as Rebecca's sleazy cousin and Dame Judith Andersen, the cast was matchless.

I read the book, and it is a masterpiece of this genre. It's not a slim volume, either, but Du Maurier's narrative skill is such that you hang on until midway through the book before finding out the truth about Rebecca. In lesser hands, you'd have given up much earlier, screaming, "Get on with it, won't you!"

That's what Hitchcock achieved in his film: you hang on, fascinated, just as you do in the book, despite how long it takes to get to that boathouse scene, one of the best monologues in film, in my view.

r60 that is Joan on the set of The Alfred Hitchcock Hour. She was so beautiful and a class act.

"The Paragon" is one of my favorite episodes. Fontaine is brilliant. The role she plays makes you want to kill her. Gary Merril is also good in this and I've thought him a stiff.

I've seen the Hitchcock version, the 1997 version with Charles Dance and Emilia Fox and now, the Netflix remake. I did enjoy the 1997 adaptation and I thought the actors were very well-cast. However, Hitchcock is still my favourite. I don't think the other versions had the same edge as Hitchcock..well, he was dubbed the master of suspense for a reason! So I agree with R90, especially about boathouse monologue. I did not hate the Netflix version and I didn't love it either. It was, as one review says "a perfectly watchable romp", but nothing memorable though.

Shut up, R91.

I guess I gotta watch the Hitchcock version again. I am really stuck on 1997 with Fox and Dance... loved the age difference.

George Sanders's incessant blathering almost ruins the original. Same goes for All About Eve and The Picture of Dorian Gray. He just goes on and on and on and on.

Time to burn R95 at the stake.

Armie looks good in Photoshop.

What do we think of Armie’s nipples in this?

Hot, or excessively baby bottle-ish? 🍼

Armie looks good in person, ive seen him at a cafe....the man glows.

Georgous film, damn fine.

Well, at least it's "turgid".

tur good!

Gave up. Lily is awful and Hammer sucks. As per. Total sad shit.

R96 - Too right! Sanders' urbane corruption is delicious.

Assume everyone would know just listening to him with eyes closed that actor Tom Conway was Sanders' brother. In the Jacques Tourneur/Val Lewton 1942 noir-horror classic (which should be on everyone's Halloween DVD Watch List), "Cat People", Conway brings the same soft insincerity to his psychiatric sessions with and attempt to seduce the tragically cursed young Irina. You could almost have switched the two out except that Conway was better looking.

The musical that....wasn't.

I loved like this version and I love Hitchcock’s version, as well as loving the novel, which I’ve read twice. I also loved PBS series, and have watched versions of Rebecca as a play, online.

The thing is, this story is always a tad different in every rendering. Big deal?

Just enjoy the freakin’ film. It’s a great story

R18 Gus Van Sant's pointlessly wasteful exercise in reshooting Psycho sent this promising homosexual's career down the sewer.

post often !

post with passion!

display turgid zeal for armie and all good men!!

R86 My Daddy was incredible!

There were basically 3 starring roles. The strange things was, if one was absent from the screen for a bit, I would forget they were in the movie. I remember thinking every time Armie reentered, "Oh yeah, he is in this". All three so dull, and those wonderfully written supporting roles, wasted. One bright note: The ladies maid. I liked that actress.

Best show on netflix now,,,,,,best reivews ive seen...armie u sexy man..

I really need to block the idiot at R112. He talks like a retard in every thread on here.

r112 Have another drink, Armie.

Lily James is too long in the tooth to be playing the ingenue. And she has terrible skin.

Terrible skin? Geez, the woman is gorgeous, even in HD. You people are crazy.

Rufus Sewell would have made a fantastic Maxim de Winter instead of white bread Armie. Lily James is way too pretty for the second Mrs. de Winter - in England they are not afraid to put plain or unconventional-looking women in leading lady roles i.e. Edith Evans, Peggy Ashcroft or Glenda Jackson. Joan Fontaine also was very pretty but could downplay her looks and act around them. Joanna David in the 1979 is actually quite plain and very touching and convincing. It makes sense of the sexual enthrallment with Max. Emilia Fox is also quite pretty but also come off as very young and inexperienced. [Emilia Fox is actually the daughter of Joanna David by Edward Fox]

BTW: there was an abbreviated 90 minute adaptation of "Rebecca" done for the television series "Theatre 62" in 1962 that I assumed was lost but it is streaming on Amazon Prime. It is too short and low budget but is of interest because of the cast. Joan Hackett is a nervous and neurotic Second Mrs. de Winter and doesn't even attempt much of a British accent. She seems American but gives an acute, convincing portrayal of insecurity developing into character and strength. James Mason is a little too old as Maxim (he should seem about 40 to his second wife's 21). Olivier was a decade older than Fontaine and comes off a bit too young. Charles Dance in the 1997 version also looks a bit like Emilia Fox's father and is too cold and sinister. I think James Mason around 1951 would have been perfect - he can play tortured, intimidating and sympathetic at the same time. Nina Foch is glacially placid but threatening Mrs. Danvers. It is worth a look.

BTW: I was told that in the book Mrs. Danvers was the nursemaid to Rebecca and is a mother figure to her. Hence her protectiveness and resentment of the second wife. The lesbian overtones were added by Hitchcock and Dame Judith Anderson who is brilliant.

R117 Rufus Sewell is pretty great in everything and still handsome. Therefore, he's always getting roles. What an amazing career that guy has had. Armie could never.

I am reading the book now and imagining Ewan McGregor as Maxim. He has the vulnerability.

Funny how different the ending is in the book. The films rightly fleshed out where the book.... just stops.

R117 - I think your suggestion of Rufus Sewell is brilliant, especially if his portrayal of the last Hapsburg heir in "The Illusionist" is anything to go by.

However, I disagree with the lesbiansim being added by Hitchcock. I read the book - Mrs Danvers' feelings for Rebecca are not the same as the fierce devotion of, say, Mammy toward Scarlett in "Gone with the Wind". The scene where Danvers takes Rebecca to the drawer where Danvers still keeps Rebecca's convent sewn silk knickers and strokes them lovingly before the horrified Second Mrs De Winter (does anyone else think how brilliant it was of Du Maurier not to give the Second Mrs De Winter a first name?) was all too clear, as was Danvers' defence of Rebecca's hatred of men and her toying with them without loving them.

In fact, one mark of the author's layered brilliance is that it's also clear that Rebecca made a victim of poor Mrs Danvers by joining her in Danvers' disdain for men. At one point in the book, Danvers goes on a rant defending Rebecca's treatment of all the men around her. "Why shouldn't she?" Danvers screeched.

Poor Danny was as much the victim of Rebecca's clever manipulation as everyone else around her.

If anything, I thought the film downplayed the lesbian throbbing between Danvers and Rebecca from how glaring it was in the book.

In the book, does Danvers die in the fire or does she jump into the sea?

In the book she is just reported as having left that afternoon. In the book the reference to the fire is one sentence, the last sentence... they are still driving home. The book just stops with the vague reference to the house on fire.

« The road to Manderley lay ahead. There was no moon. The sky above our heads was inky black. But the sky on the horizon was not dark at all. It was shot with crimson, like a splash of blood. And the ashes blew towards us with the salt wind from the sea. «

That’s the end of it. Kind of weak. It just stops.

R122 - Dies in the fire.

Thank you R123 and I R125. Though your answers are different. Thanks for quoting from the book R123! If I was reading Rebecca, the ambiguous, lyrical ending would be great. I loved the drama of the fire with Danvers at the windows in the Hitchcock film. The Netflix/Working Title remake with Danvers jumping as the first Mrs watches was blah, as was the last scene in Cairo. What are we supposed to make of that? Now they are happy on vacation, sans Manderely?

I’m sure it was David Selznick, who produced Rebecca, the original, who said don’t fuck with a classic. I guess there was a certain symmetry in Mrs. Danvers doing the high jump into the sea but it didn’t add much. Granted, the film versions always had to show the fire because it would be stupid not to in a movie. But

Why does everyone hate Armie on DL?

R128 They're just jealous (and catty in true DL fashion). He doesn't look like he did ten years ago but he's still a very attractive man.

I'm not sticking up for his quasi-public unattractive behavior, though. The guy should have never married at the tender age of 23.

NPR doesn’t flay it but points out all the flaws, including how much this Manderley sucked. Really liked KST. Bad script choices.

The first Mrs de Winter to the latest monstrosity using her name: Pshaw!

[quote] I haven’t seen it yet but just looking at the photo at OP, the actress playing Rebecca doesn’t look right.

Rebecca only appears as a water-logged corpse. There is no actress who plays Rebecca.