Rebecca 2020, The Underwhelming Adaptation No One Asked For
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- Опубліковано 29 вер 2024
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A look at the new Rebecca 2020 by Netflix regarding if it tied into the book in any way.
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Poor dom, fifty shades trauma is a common but terrible affliction
666 likes
50 Shades of PTSD
I love how movie take female characters that are specifically written as being "plain" and gets a gorgeous actress to play them, thus nulling out a major point about the character.
TBF we don't know if The Protagonist actually was plain.
I don't think we can trust what she says about herself.
@@alanpennie8013 it's pretty clear the protagonist was purposely portrayed as plain in juxtaposition to the glamorous Rebecca. Even if she is judging herself harshly, it's obvious she wasn't as beautiful as the attractive actresses who have played her in films.
The Book: This character is plain and unattractive.
Casting Director: Oh no! Anyway…
In the book, she was a Cinderella type,with a fresh, unrefined beauty to her. Not as attractive as Rebecca, but still quite a looker.Joan Fontaine, who played the narrator in the 1940 film,was also considered beautiful at the time. So... 🙂
I think the Zeffirelli version of Jane Eyre with Charlotte Gainsbourg hit the mark perfectly. "Plain" doesn't mean "ugly," after all.
I mostly wonder If Mr. DeWinter and Rebecca were married at age 12, because Army Hammer looks ridiculously young to play someone who was married to Rebecca for YEARS before staying a whole year as a widower prior to the movie starting.
I mean, Maxim and Rebecca were married at the very least long enough for their anual ball to become a tradition known by American women out in Montecarlo, at the other side of Europe!
I would have guessed that that takes time.
In the book, Maxim is 42
Yup. Should've cast Jon Hamm jf they needed someone like armie hammer so bad.
Armie Hammer looked about ten years too old in "call me by your name" and it ruined the film for me. Somehow he never looks the right age. 😂
@@dierckeatlas Okay, a bit of a tangent, but 100% YES. That man was WAY too old to be dating and having sex with a 17 year old (by the movies own time frame)! It was a good story, but it came off as creepy with such a difference in life experience at that time
When you stop watching a Dominic Noble video to watch a Dominic Noble video
My mom never read the book. When we started watching the movie. I figured out she thought it was a romance. So when we got to Manderley after the 25 minutes it took meandering to the actual plot. She was confused over the fact it wasn’t a romance anymore. I had to explain the book was a thriller.
I like this episode more than your previous Rebecca episode, I appreciate how much you have grown in your work.
I quite enjoyed this adaptation myself, but I love hearing your opinion and I think you've made valuable points. Don't be too hard on yourself for your old videos either, the last Rebecca review still makes me laugh whenever I watch it!
Your original Rebecca LIA is actually my favorite video of yours. lol.
10:54 There have been so many unintentional horrors portrayed as romances over the past few years that it's understandable that some people might think a horror or a thriller is actually a romance.
I bought the book months ago but haven't gotten around to it. Figured I'd read it after watching the Netflix movie, since I've always struggled a bit with reading classics. Now that I've seen Netflix's version, I am very underwhelmed and don't really care to read the book anymore.
This is on of my favourite books so I am scared to watch this adaptation.
There is a wonderful adaptation in the 90s by I think ITV which has Charles Dance in it. He's a perfect Maxim
I liked Rebecca 2020. I didn't 'love' it. Or even 'really like' it. But if I didn't try to analyse it at all, I found I enjoyed it on a surface level.
*To be fair, I am yet to read the book.
I am almost considering doing this always. If the book is always better, might as well watch the film first and try to evade the inevitable as long as possible.
Dom, have you done a Lost in Adaptation of The Birds? I just read Du Maurier's novella and OMG is it good, as scary as a Stephen King story. It's as different from Hitchcocks The Birds as Kubrick's and King's The Shining ( and each treatment is just as great). So pretty please, if you haven't done a LiA on The Birds, consider it.
So I've never read the book or seen the Hitchcock movie. I had pretty much the same reaction to this movie as you did tbh. I feel like they could've gone full gothic and made a horror movie, or softened the blow considerably and made a dramatic romance, and that's what they tried to do. I think it was a valid choice, and they went about it the right way - making Maximilian younger and nicer, making the lead more decisive, etc. But they should've gone harder with Maximilian's changes. He's a full on prince charming at first and then as soon as they get to the house he's gone to London, and doing creepy shit in the middle of the night, and being an asshole, and ignoring the lead when she talks about Danvers. It was so abrupt I got whiplash. That, combined with Armie Hammer being lost as hell in this role, made Maximilian as spineless as the lead, while also being an gaslighting mess. 5/10 barely remember any of it
Am I the only one who thought Rebecca was another version of Jane Eyre? Funny that I was just thinking 'whatever happened to lovely and talented actress Kristin Scott Thomas?' and here she is again! Happy for the return even if others in the cast didn't match her always stellar performance in this film. As for Armie and Lily being the same age, she in no way looks in her early 30's and could easily pass for mid to lower 20's, but he can't. He is a handsome man, but looks his age.
😩😩😭😭😭😭 Those 50 shades parallels tho. no no n o nO!
Is Armie Hammer a living Proctor & Gamble ad? What a name. I mean, it's memorable, so there's that. But sweet stars above, wtf
I read the book and found it incredibly infuriating until after I read up some more on it and it became obvious that was very much on purpose lol
Late in Du Maurier's life someone did a little skit giving us Rebecca's pov (like Neil Gaiman on Susan Pevensey) and Du Maurier found it pretty funny, especially the raising of Maxim's creepiness to the nth power.
I've never read the book and have never seen the Hitchock film, so I went into this film completely blind. I dont think it was bad, a bit boring in parts but overall I was entertained. It was a bit predictable though. Also, I didnt understand that if "the lead" was obviously hurt by being compared and reminded of the wife so much....why do the ball? Like, I get she wanted to assert her dominance or whatever...but then do something new. Doing the exact the same thing the old wife did isnt going to help those comparisons go away.
After the boat wreck in the middle, I read Maxim as being as damaged as his second wife. She seems to at least have a problem with anxiety, which makes Mrs Van Hopper harder for her to deal with, and he was dealing with the emotional abuse he felt at the hands of Rebecca. And I really do think Rebecca was abusive.
And now I will always have a sexy, British voice for Netflix. Thanks! LOL!
I want to watch this review so bad but I also wanna go in blind to the new film so ima have to wait. But I’ll leave my thumbs up and comment and all that for dom in the meantime.
It was really weird that Maxim was called "an old man" couple of times and Lily James was called a "young thing" or something like that even tough the agegap between Armie Hammer and Lily James is two years. It just feels weird because usually hollywood producers love to have older man/younger woman pairs in their films.
Ikr, one of the few times the story actually calls for a Colin Firth/George Clooney to be married to a Kiernan Shipka or Elle Fanning and they don't?? Just shows how strange and nonsensical casting can be.
As I said before, poor Armie can't get age right lol. Not that it's 100% his fault I suppose.
At least cast someone 20 years older than LJ or someone younger than Hammer.
Also would prefer an average looking female lead with acting chops.
@@Peachu_n_Goma_Home male lead most certainly needed by have silver in his hair not that i seen the movie but it helps with the character. i mean rich older gentlement just recently lose his wife. Of course he going to try to get someone younger. Today we call these trophy wives.
I saw an interview with the director where he said that they made the leads closer in age and gave Mrs. de Winter more agency to make the film more feminist, which I found such a fundamental misreading of the text. There’s no world in which your takeaway of Rebecca should be “highly imbalanced relationships between powerful older men and disempowered younger women are a good idea”
Just so. Our response to the protagonist is supposed to be a mixture of sympathy, and concern about her self - destructive behaviour.
i agree! where can find this interview?
Also weird he said that where the author was a female……..
Director obviously missed the whole point of the story. I hate it when they decide to make the story "relevant" and "relatable" to contemporary audiences and ruin the original work in the process. It's considered a classic for good reason---as is the older, much more faithful film version--so both are already relevant on their own terms. 1940 and 2020 are very different eras; don't costume the piece in one era but have characters act as though they are in another. The resulting film will do justice to neither, and cause cognitive dissonance in the hapless viewer.
@Oliviagarry69420 To be fair, there are people - including women - who are sexist against their own gender. I'm not saying the author of Rebecca was one of those people, but they do exist.
I think the problem with movie adaptations of "unlikable" characters is one of celebrity ego. Executives don't want their young, pretty leads to be seen as terrible people who are called out on their behavior.
They want young people watching the film to identify with the leads in order to make bank. They also don't want said actors to be mad at having their image compromised. It's the same reason why Pepsi wouldn't like there to be a can of their soda on display during a murder in a horror movie.
This is a marketing trend, so it's not going anywhere, but it's something that I really do hate because it's entirely ego-driven. "Character actors", aka anyone who's not the young pretty lead, don't have the same issues with portraying complicated and sometimes nasty characters, and that's why I enjoy them more.
True. But then there’s “Knives Out,” which - oh, drat it, spoilers - possibly subverts that idea brilliantly?
Um....should someone remind them that they're *acting?*
To reiterate something my sister said actors are basically paid to pretend.
@@elizabethpemberton8445 I loved how snotty Chris Evans was in that movie. He gave me the biggest laughs 😂 especially when he tells off his aunts & uncles
And some actors subvert this through sheer charisma. Many of Robert Downey Jr.'s characters are sheer assholes, but he brings so much magnetism to his roles that we root for him anyway. Same with Laurence Olivier's Maxim.
What about that Pepsi sign in Jojo's Bizarre Adventures: Diamond is Unbreakable, technically there was a murder then and there... kind of...
He thought he was out, but Fifty Shades is like the baddie in It Follows, it's always there waiting to pounce!
Oh just wait until someone recommends for Dom to read a different kind of fan fiction version of Fifty Shades of Gray and that book is called After.
@@Megatron_95 Oh God, that book is... Hmmmm.
There is no escape.
And you can't wait for it to leave
It’s like the monster in every horror film. You think you got them, but there they go back up again
One of the things that annoys me in movies like this is when they put modern ideals in clearly time period settings. That broke my suspension of disbelief. If you don't want to deal with the social workings of that time period, don't place your movie in that time period.
women in modern period dramas are just born with ten volumes of intersectional feminist theory deeply ingrained
@@Line... Feminism is a pretty old thing, the oldest record we may have found came from the middle to late 1200s.
Women have always been fighting for their rights, making groups and latching onto mythological women and goddesses.
Lilith from Jewish mythology who actually helped women comes to mind.
But intersectional feminism definitely took years to build up.
Frankly I'd love to see a good approach to ye ole feminism some time. As well as the author biting the bullet and realising that yea, when we say women were seen as property
That
Is not
An exaggeration.
And men, including that love interest, was most likely a fucking dickhead to women.
Exactly. People from the 1930's aren't going to act like people in 2020 do. If you're going to set a film, book, TV series, game, cartoon comic or whatever in a past time period have the characters act like people from back then did not how they do now.
@@Line... What do you mean by that? That feminism never exist?
@@valenluca3253 No, that would be absurd. Feminism has always existed in some form. But feminism looked very different 100, 80, 50, even 20 years ago, regardless if that core foundation of wanting equal rights for women was the same. I would consider myself a feminist but I have a problem with the portrayal of feminism in period dramas.
Dominic: "Hello my beautiful watchers."
Me: "Hello our handsome, cat-loving host."
This is so cute!
@@perewinklebee2943 Thanks! He greets us so kindly the least we can do is pay him back in some way. 😊
I AM SAYING THIS BACK AT HIM FOR NOW ON!
@@breaksystembse Then I'm glad I gave you the idea. 🥰
Hmm... I have never heard about this book and have never seen any of the previous adaptations, so I was pretty pleased with this movie, tbh. To me it was visually pleasing and I liked the plot as it was, with a rather positive ending it spoke to me more then the original one would, it seems ^^;
P.s. I would love to see Dom reviewing Haunting of Bly Manor :3
The moment I heard about this movie, I immediately thought "I wonder what the Dom will think about it."
Here's my answer
same
The Hayes Code apparently also had a clause in it about how if you showed a character doing something evil they had to be punished. Either way the villain was doomed in the movie
Yeah. One of the aspects of The Hays Code was that if you showed a character committing crime, then they *had* to be punished in some way before the movie ended, usually by being killed. [Spoilers for 1956's _The Bad Seed_ follow.]
This even when their deaths end being obviously forced by it or when they outright got away with their crimes in the original work. The best example I know that I have seen is _The Bad Seed_ version from 1956. Unlike the original story and the later remake versions from what I've read, the 1956 movie abruptly ends when the villain protagonist little girl who is a manipulative and murderous sociopath walks onto a pier and suddenly gets struck by a bolt of lightning that causes the pier to explode and kills her. Even with there being a heavy rainstorm out as the movie ends, it comes out of absolutely *nowhere* (well, it comes from the sky, but shut up), especially since the pier was made out of dead wood and since I can't remember if she had even found the metal medal she was searching for that she had killed a classmate to steal at the beginning of the movie. (EDIT: Oh. Wait. I refreshed my memory. She was touching a fishing net attached to a metal rod. It's still *pretty* dumb though.)
That movie is still quite good overall, and most Hays Code enforcement examples that make into the movie aren't as egregious as that, but when The Hays Code rears its ugly head in older movies, it's usually pretty easy to tell. If a character is a criminal in a Hays Code movie, then the best they can hope for is prison.
The fact that Spartacus ended with the lead's death and the antagonists helping turn Rome into a tyrannical empire already showed that, by the '60s, that requirement was being ignored. Then again, it was the decade where the Hays Code suffered a slow death.
@@jlev1028 Even _Spartacus_ (which is an excellent movie) at least ends on a somewhat hopeful note despite the deaths of all the heroes and a tyrant coming to power. Then again, even today a complete downer ending where the bad guy completely wins is relatively rare. The only modern examples that immediately come to mind are _The Neon Demon_ and _Avengers: Infinity War_ with the latter getting undone on top of Thanos being vaguely remorseful about it.
Oh. Wait. There is also _Son of Saul_ given it was intentionally made as a Holocaust movie where no one survives.
Otherwise, yeah. The Hays Code was basically chipped away at gradually by successful movies flaunting and ignoring it over the years rather than being overturned all at once from what I currently understand. That's usually the case with oppressive policies though.
Foulfellow, Gideon and the Coachman from Pinocchio: *Funny you mention that.....*
I was going to point that out too. It wasn't necessarily a hard and fast rule that every single immoral person in a movie had to be punished but, you certainly couldn't have a movie's main villain appear to get away with things. The real point was just not to send the message that evil wins or that being a criminal pays off. I feel like that was more of the reason for Mrs. Danvers getting killed off than the vague gay subtext. Under the Hays Code, she couldn't be allowed to just scamper off into the night after burning down Manderley and trying to convince the 2nd Mrs. De Winter to kill herself.
When your actors' torrid personal lives are more entertaining than the gothic horror/thriller they're starring in, something has gone terribly wrong.
Well damn now you've got me curious...
Wait what happened?
@@maddiepaddy2608 Armie Hammer pulled a Neil Gaiman and left his wife and kids in the Cayman Islands, and Lily James got caught having an affair with a married co-star.
@@LaurasBookBlog omg
@@maddiepaddy2608 also Armie Hammer is apparently into cannibalism
All I'm hearing is Catbug from Bravest Warriors:
"Rebeccaaaaaaaa!"
"Rebeca. You are the pwettiest girl in Blooklin'." Whelp, time to go watch it ten times over again :D
Now I can't un hear it
*whispers* i will always love you...
I LOOOOOOVVVVEEE YOUUUU!!!
I can hear Klaus Mickelson lol
I’m a massive Rebecca fan and you share my thoughts exactly. I find the story romantic but in a very gothic and doomed sort of way. Netflix just can’t ever commit to that kind of duality.
I'm 20 seconds in and he's already crying OH BOY THIS IS GONNA GO WELL
That was a great intro
Aw man I was looking forward to the movie.
Netflix: "Okay, we need someone plain - Someone who is cast in shadow compared to the beautiful, glamorous woman who came before her. Someone who everyone immediately looks at and wonders, 'Why did he settle for her when he had a goddess before?' Hmm...How about *FORMER DISNEY PRINCESS* Lily James?"
I mean Joan Fontain wasn’t exactly plain either, thought at least they didn't make her look glamourous like it looks like they did with Lily.
Seems to be a trend with Rebecca adaptations to cast dispreportionally gorgeous women as the lead, despite her plain looks being integral to the story.
@@creepycustard2383 Joanna David was the closest they got, I think, although Joan Fontain was better at putting across the neurotic schoolgirl attitude, despite being obviously beautiful.
@Amanda Hughes He does. And Beatrice responds that she doesn't look anything like Maxim described, offering her tips on how to better style her hair and commenting that she obviously doesn't care about the way she looks. She's beautiful to Maxim because she's the exact opposite of Rebecca.
Maybe things like this are the reason why the beauty standards are becoming warped and twisted. If Lily James is supposed to be plain (I think she looks much prettier with dark hair, but maybe that's just me), then ordinary-looking people are considered ugly.
They totally changed Maxim completely!!!
Where did the cold, condescending and distant murderer go I ask you?!?where?!
I checked out the moment they tried to make the line "I'm asking you to marry me, you little fool" romantic.
@@mariagerbaulet-vanasse1471 lmaooo i know right? he constantly humilliated the main character and we are supposed to believe it was affection? that was very stupid
who sees a oscar winning hitchcock and thinks, huh i could do better?
Exactly!
Fools.
Dunning Kruger victims.
Hitchcock never won an Oscar. The movie won Best Picture, but Best Director went to John Ford.
Netflix, the fact that it was such a celebrated movie and a Hitchcock just encourages them
My favourite part of the book was always the way Mrs de Winter finally starts to stamp her own personality on Manderly after she finds out the truth. Little things like insisting on fires being lit where she wants them or sending back breakfast and ordering something else. Before she just always accepted the way things had been done when Rebecca was mistress of the house. I really missed that shift in this adaptation, I found it very satisfying having spent most of the novel being frustrated with her for being such a door mat.
We need a GIF of Dom’s face when he says ”highly inappropriate in high society” at 4:18 😂
yes please
I concur!
You do realize Gifs don't have sound, don't you?
@@danielbergonzi7319 subtitles for the deaf exist , we can use those. have a fancy font and everything.
Make it so
I think you're being too hard on yourself for disliking your previous episode on Rebecca, because it remains as one of my personal favorites of your videos!
That was a great video
I agree. While I do understand that Dominic doesn't enjoy his older videos, I really liked that one. I might have a habit of rewatching older LiA videos. Maybe. 😏
i agree!! i can 100% understand being overly critical of your own work but honestly i really like the rebecca episode, ive watched it like 6 times by now !!
I really like that one as well! I think that dissatisfaction with older work can be a sign that someone’s grown and refined their style, and because the creator is comparing the actual product with the version in their head it’s much more of a contrast. Whereas for those of us who just see the actual thing that was made we can just enjoy it for what it is!
I still think his skit where the lead is talking to all her fictional children, confusing the fuck out of Maxim, is still one of the best jokes he's ever made.
This was a damn good book. This was a damn disappointing film. This was a damn fantastic review.
Damn, that was a damn well done comment, damnit!
At least you have the Hitchcock movie!
@@GriffinPilgrim Damn, Damn Damn Opposed!
Was this written by Rhett Butler?
Having the two leads be much more intimate and close from the start removes the reason why the female lead allows a lot of what goes on at first.
She starts out a shy, naive girl, suddenly married to a powerful, wealthy older man, who is fond of her but close off and distant. This is why in the beginning she feels she can't be the Lady of the manor as shes doesn't feel like she has his backing. She arrives and is basically ignored and left alone by her husband in this big estate full to the brim of people who openly resent this new wife. An Estate that is full of staff who practically worshipped the previous Wife and that still run the place in the way Rebecca wanted it. Shes alone, unsure, hated and unguided on how to do play the role of his wife. This means she naturally she turns to the housekeeper for guidance (I'm not sure but doesn't the husband does infer she ask the housekeeper if she needs anything at first?) which is why she listens and relies on her so much. This leaves her open and very easy prey to the manipulations and insidious undermining of sanity and marriage by the housekeeper.
Once the lead finds out about the murder she gains courage because she now knows that Rebecca was far from the saint shes made out to be, so she no longer feels the need to compare herself to Rebecca and stops feeling inadequate. There are also no secrets between them creating distance anymore and for the first time they are a united team. She also now has power over her Husband by witnessing his confession, which could send him to the gallows if she ever wanted too which helps stop feeling lesser and more an equal.
Just watched Rebecca yesterday with my parents, none of us liked it. Only I knew about the plot from the book, my dad had watched the Hitchcock film and my mom neither. She guessed the whole plot and ending. Sadly it was a boring film.
Not even a sexy film? Because both the leads are objectively good-looking, and I was hoping for some MiLF Mrs. Danvers.
@@Visplight Nope. Not even sexy. It's a beige movie.
@@Aster_Risk Aw... and this year continues to kick me in the shin.
@@Visplight Yes, but this not the point in "Rebecca": sexiness. The two leads are so plain. They are good enough for a common love story.
I haven't read the book in years but the one thing that stuck with me was that Maxim is supposed to be significantly older than the lead and she marries him on a bit of a whim. Now, unless I'm very much mistaken, Lily James and Armie Hammer are basically the same age, right? While I would normally commend Hollywood for casting age-appropriate love interests for once, it seems like this is one occasion where an older man and a younger woman would actually have been better casting! I'm thinking sort of Jude Law/Florence Pugh?
That intro 😂 Also, I can only wish anyone who tries to outdo Alfred Hitchcock good luck.
The best way to avoid that is to do your own thing and not try to copy him. It should be more like the new Invisible Man where it’s a ‘remake’ of the 1930’s film but does it’s own thing instead of those rehash remakes hollywood loves.
@Tom Ffrench 😂
Netflix: Our Rebecca is better than Hitchcock's.
Ghost of Hitchcock: Good evening.
Then he proceeds to haunt the Netflix execs for the insult.
Like disturbia is a different take on Rear Window. Both good and different
The film adaptation didn't capture how unsettling their relationship was before the reveal, how he treated as her child, petted her like Jasper. And then the twist that actually Max thought she didn't like him and was being aloof running off with Jasper. So what was the book trying to point out? How obsessively in love the main character is?
I liked the ITV two-part adaptation with Charles Dance and Emelia Fox as Maxim and Mrs de Winter. Their age gap romance was really clear in that one. They then starred together in something else as father and daughter so... yeah, age gap.
Also in that one Maxim *was* an asshole, and Mrs. de Winter *was* timid and lacking in personality. And Dame Diana Rigg as Mrs. Danvers was *TERRIFYING.*
Netflix: We don't care if you watch it or not.
"Hey this is Netflix, you're greenlit how can I direct your call?"
@@Gauldame
"...I was going to ask you if you were interested in buying insurance."
"Buying... insurance... okay we've got that down we begin filming tomorrow."
@@merrittanimation7721 Now, is this an original story Buying Insurance or is this based on a graphic novel.
It's Car Insurance ma'am.
Netflix: we know you're stuck in your home so you'll watch what we give you and say thank you.
Netflix: And if you all like it we'll just cancel it ^__^
After reading the book I immediately thought "wow this is extremally adaptation unfriendly". The book asks you to suspend your disbelief a bit at first, but slowly, through each of several minor, unpleasant events, builds an atmosphere of paranoia and misery that makes all the outrageous happenings feel real. If any movie, however, tried to show all the times when somebody makes an off-hand comment during lunch that upsets the protagonist, it would be 12 hours long and dull as hell. So immediately, a filmmaker will have to trade off the abundance of small elements that create the mood, for a few dramatic ones, making the story feel way more melodramatic than the original, loosing a huge chunk of the emotional impact. There's also several things in the book that, I'll be honest, just don't really hold up to modern scrutiny (the framing of the protagonist's marriage, the framing of Maxim's crime, his relation with the police that remains uncommented, the vilification of Rebecca's sexuality... ) so I get where the netflix filmmakers and their changes are coming from. I feel like now matter how many of adaptations appear, Hitchcock's is the best we'll get due to time proximity to the book's release
EDIT: A lot of people seem to be missing my point. I never meant to imply that Rebecca was not a bad person - cheating is an awful act of selfishness and betrayal. What I meant by the the "vilification of Rebecca's sexuality" is that, aside from her infidelity we, the reader, are provided with very little example of her "rotten, abominable" behavior other then her adultery, which in term serves as a motivation for Maxim's murder, implying that if your wife sleeps around and you kill her for it, it's excusable, if not deserved, and you're the real victim here
Also, since I'm at it, the "They're all bad people!" argument does not work if the book says nothing about it. Rebecca is the only character punished by death, and her and Mrs. Danvers are the villains of the story, thus marking them as the worst of the bad people, worse even than the ACTUAL MURDERER
This is such a great comment! I never thought about the fact they may have wanted to change things that would look questionable in a modern film (like, as you said, the the framing of Maxim'a crime and the vilification of Rebecca's sexuality) - the book (and Hitchcock version) both have an underlying subtextual misogyny that adds to the bleak gothic atmosphere, but don't work if you want Rebecca to be a romance movie with a likeable male lead.
Sorry for the long comment, you just make some great points!
an adaptation that dropped any pretense of romance and just leaned into the darkness would be great. ie Maxim getting away with stuff cause he's of a higher social class and everyone's enamored with him except rebeccas cousin, the fact that he's probably married the protagonist because she doesn't have a personality etc
Disagree that the vilification of Rebecca's sexuality doesn't hold up. The way I read it, yeah, she sleeps around and that's looked down on, but what's really evil is how abusive she is to Maxim. That can work in the modern day, it just needs to be done carefully.
@@Dracinard Agreed. Also, even in the modern day, cheating on your spouse with multiple people is (rightfully) looked down on. That's different from slut-shaming someone who's single (or in an open relationship) and not hurting anyone.
@@Dracinard He murdered her rather than get a divorce and she KNEW he would. His second wife learns her husband is a killer and is thrilled because it means she is first in his affections. They were awful people. Mrs Danvers had a point.
The LiA of Rebecca is one of my favorite episodes. "Come along Jasper" gets me everytime.
"This is going to be the weirdest complaint coming from me but: HOLY DAMN, THIS BOOK IS TOO BRITISH"
Same. His rant in the middle where he complains about the book being too British, gets me every time 😂
I loved when he discusses how MAXIM was weirded out by how ok his new wife was with him being a murderer.
I Love that episode! It's my go to when I'm sad🤗
I love the "I say!" after his british rant!
Maxim de Winter is literally named after two different types of gun. To me the best reading of the book is one were Maxim is the villain who literally killed one woman and metaphorically killing another, turning the unnamed narrator into an automaton who’s only job is to look after him. It makes the turning point in the middle were she gains more self confidence into a moment were she instead becomes even more committed to him because she can now be the wife to him that Rebecca never was. It makes her more determined to commit to him rather then giving her more independence. To me that why the book is so scary it plays on the fear that you might willing submit and surrender independence, rather then be forced to give it up.
I'm tripping a bit because I read this book in college randomly, just found it at a bookstore, knew nothing about the author or when it was written, and I didn't read Maxim as the villain at all, on the contrary I read Rebecca as abusive and Maxim doing the reactive abuse thing, and his anger towards his new wife as having a sort of PTSD flashback kind of thing, especially the bit with the costume ball. I read it as this bitter sweet gothic romance thing where everyone is a little messed up at the end from the ripple effects of Rebecca's behaviour, I watched the netflix movie knowing nothing about the author or what she intended and liked it, and only found out about the actual intent of it when looking up reactions to the movie after.
I read somewhere that the author saw herself in Rebecca and I don't know how to feel about that, because I don't believe Rebecca's behaviour is remotely acceptable or excusable. It kind of felt like an E.L James moment where it's like "Ohh, you have abusive tendencies, actually."
And it's all very confusing to me because I am a woman and I do interrogate things from a feminist perspective, but this reading is so alien to me, idk.
@@carolineballeza5090 That sounds like the inverse of my favorite novel, White Oleander, whose world it bleak but whose prose is very rich.
@@legionof9910 and now I have another book on my list to eventually read.
@@carolineballeza5090 You should read ASAP it truly is a delight.
@@legionof9910 with a recommendation like that I'll try. Maybe they'll have it at the library :)
Rebecca is one of my favorite books and I hated the new adaptation, basically for all the same reasons. But, I do recommend the 1997 with Emilia Fox and Charles Dance. It’s my favorite adaptation of the three that exist now. It’s more a mini-series, so they have more time to get it right. They do play up the romance or actual attraction a bit though for audiences. But, other than that it’s pretty spot on as far as book to movie adaptations go.
have not seen that version but I LOVE Charles Dance so will have to give it a watch
There is another adaptation, a four-part miniseries made in 1979 with Jeremy Brett as Maxim! It's the best version by far, in fact I think it's perfect.
Dom: a video i made three years ago
Me: no that can't be right that was maybe... wait...no... it can't be... I've been watching dom's videos for about three years?????
The stage musical remains my favorite adaptation, I think. I agree, the biggest issue with this one for me was that they treated it like a regular romance film with a speck of suspense rather than what it actually is, and in tow they ended up romanticizing the main relationship as if they were an ideal couple to root for. I love Danvers, she's my favorite character, and here I felt as if I was watching a telenovela villain, but then I realized that was because KST was the only performer who knew which movie she was in, with the two leads being treated as some sort of power couple to root for rather than the flawed, complex characters from the original, Danvers turned into something more caricature-like than she was intended to be. It really is insane to me that someone would be willing to adapt Rebecca and not make it a gothic suspense mystery, and it surprises me how much the lens through which a story can be adapted can change so much of its intention. I wish someone like Issa López had been given the directing job for a Rebecca adaptation tbh.
I love the musical, especially the "I'll Never Forget Her Smile" song. The musical actually improves on the Hitchcock movie a bit: 2nd Mrs. de Winter tells her husband that she knows and accepts that he still loves Rebecca BEFORE he tells the story of their horrible marriage and the circumstances of her death, Maxim receives the news that Rebecca was dying via phone, also he was asked by the magistrate not to leave the county, the fact that the 2nd Mrs. de Winter starts changing things in the house. I also want to point out that in the Hungarian version of the"I'll Never Forget Her Smile" confession song Maxim tells his 2nd wife about the time he took Rebecca to Monte Carlo where she made the bargain with Maxim, but the text never explicitly says that this was Maxim and Rebecca's honeymoon. The English translation makes it clear that it was their honeymoon, but I'm not familiar with the original German text.
I find this interesting because in the book Mrs. Denvers tells the new Mrs. de Winter that Maxim and Rebecca lived together in the most beautiful room in the house and insists that they were happy together at first, for a short while. I never understood how they could have been sharing the same room if they basically despised each other, so I always thought that maybe Max and Rebecca had a real marriage for a short while, before it fell apart. Of course this could have been a deliberate lie on Mrs. Danvers' part to undermine the new wife.
It is important to note that neither the Hitchcock movie nor the musical reveal the fact that Rebecca was not only a manipulative adulterer but she was also very cruel. When she was 16 she whipped a horse just to "teach it a lesson". The book says that she had an amazing talent of being liked by everyone, while Max says that she wasn't even normal, which could be a hint at sociopathic tendencies, perhaps. Apart from having an affair her own cousin, Rebecca also tried to seduce Frank Crawley and Giles, Maxim's brother-in-law.
I haven’t read the book, but I’m a huge fan of the Hitchcock film. I generally liked the way they adapted the film, but it did seem like they doubled down on the queercoding, in my opinion. To me, the relationship in the Hitchcock film between Rebecca and Mrs. Danvers read very much as one where Rebecca had been manipulating her, and that her torturing the lead was an extension of how Rebecca still controls her. In this film, they seemed to both keep the queer subtext, but also bring in the age dynamic, which made it seem more predatory? If that makes sense. I felt this film took a lot out of the weight that class played in the Hitchcock film. (Also I did not like the costumes, but that is a whole other story)
The costumes strike me as very "what a 2020 viewer thinks 1930 looked like" not what 1930 looked like
@@IsaacIsaacIsaacson yeah I read an article discussing the costume designer saying that he wanted to make the costumes not alien to a modern viewer, which bothered me. The lead wears a lot of pants, which some women did wear in the 1930s, but it was only very fashionable celebrities, and she doesn’t have that bold personality. Also, she’s a working class woman and probably couldn’t afford most of the clothes she wears, until she marries Maxim. Also I didn’t like how showy Danvers’ clothes were. Like the clothes were all very pretty but they didn’t communicate the class or personalities of the characters, which I believe is the chief job of costumes.
@@anatheawoirhaye3308 If there was any justice in the world, whenever a costume designed for a historical film said they don't want to "make the costumes alien to a modern viewer", Bernadette Banner would appear and slap them.
@@friendstastegood haha honestly. Use the fashion to establish the time period! It doesn’t have to be obnoxious!!!
Rebecca was requiered reading at my ESL institute when I was a teen. The thing I still remember the most from the book is the atmosphere and how emotionally satisfying the reveal was. Both those things didn't get that well across in the film. But to be honest, I liked it over all. More than anything because it's a film I can watch with my mum, who doesn't watch actual thrillers because they give her nxiety attacks.
Also, fun story, when mum and I decided to watch the film the other day, my brother got a glimpse of the screen and was so surprised when he saw that the lead is a white blonde woman. Turns out that when he read the book at the ESL institute he always pictured her with dark skin and hair. He was really shocked.
dark skin? ... why?.
I think she would have had light brown hair - one you glance over without it leaving an impression.
@@csillakaszas7285 I know. I thought the same. Also her having dark skin never occurred to me because I knew the book was written in a time when a man like Maxim marrying a woman of colour would have made for a completely different type of book.
But I still find it a breath of fresh air that my little brother didn't even care about that stuff and just assumed she was a black woman. Warms my heart.
@@thedragon6480
It does make sense psychologically, explaining why she feels so much an outsider at Manderley.
@@alanpennie8013 That's also a good point. Also I feel like this is a story that would lend itself perfectly to be very diverse in its casting, especially if someone decides to make a modern day adaptation, because most characters don't get specific physical descriptions, especially the main character. She could literally look like anyone and it wouldn't make a difference. No matter what ethnicity or skin colour the actress has, it wouldn't change a single thing.
@@thedragon6480
If we imagine the protagonist as mixed race her dilemma would be like that of Victoria, the heroine of Bhowani Junction by John Masters.
It's sad that Masters' series of books about British India (they're a bit like Vidal's Biography of America series) seem to have been forgotten.
Why must they do Daphne Du Maurier and Hitchcock dirty like this
Why is Lily James in so many bad/painfully dull faux feminist adaptations
Bad agent?
@@Betta66 Or too good agent, that stops better actresses getting the roles.
I saw the words "underwhelming adaptation", was confused why it was & why I hadn't heard of this film despite only being vaguely aware of the book, and then immediately saw "Netflix" & went "oh, that makes sense" for both internal questions.
It still sounds better than the _Death Note_ adaptation at least. Sigh.
It seems that the only good Netflix adaptation was the Daredevil TV series.
@@Xehanort10 I haven't seen that, but as much as Netflix fails, it *can* do good adaptations. That's what makes it even worse really. If Netflix were just literally *always* bad, then no one sane would expect anything of it. Instead Netflix can make or at least help produce a good adaptation once in a blue moon. It's just that the rest of its adaptations are bad to the point that the best you can hope for is for the adaptation to be so bland as to be forgettable, like this movie apparently is, or maybe so bad it's good. The _Death Note_ movie just falls into the "so bad it's terrible" realm that Netflix achieves way too often from what I've seen of the movie in reviews.
@@Xehanort10
Daredevil season was great.
The next two not so much.
@@alanpennie8013 Seasons 1 and 3 were great. I'd say 2 was the only outright bad one because apart from Daredevil and Punisher fighting over their different methods and Kingpin's return it sucked.
No they didn't :o how could they make Rebecca Grey
Fifty Shades of de Winter. 🙃
You should do the 1997 version with Charles Dance and Diana Rigg!
Lost in Adaptation of Jaws? It’s one of the few books I have read where the film is infinitely better.
That would be fun. The book isn’t terrible, but I like that Spielberg created a likeable cast (even when Robert Shaw got plastered often and bullied Richard Dreyfus) & the continuous failures of the mechanical sharks made the tension spookier thanks to John Williams’ Oscar winning score
Oof. I'd say that I don't want to subject Dom to that book, but...it probably isn't any worse than any other library book/beach read, except that the movie is *so good* and all of the things that made the book original at the time have now been done to death. And the writer became a pro-shark environmental advocate after learning more about them and how badly his work affected perceptions of them. I don't know that there's really anything interesting to say, though? The book had a lot of overcomplicated subplots that made all of the characters terrible people...I mean, maybe he could talk about how making the characters less terrible didn't mean that they lost nuance or became less interesting because the things that made them terrible were pretty tiresome and losing that meant that the audience cared about them. Huh, now that I'm thinking about it, "making a mediocre book into a much better movie" is actually a pretty good Lost in Adaptation topic!
Please don't subject Dom to descriptions of Ellen's affair with the shark guy. I still have flashbacks.
@@BlackCanary87 Oh yeah, I have heard that so many times about the great white. That they are "evil" and "killing machines". I definitely agree that this movie contributed to a misconception.
@@Wednesdaywoe1975 oh c’mon you don’t like hearing the graphic details of a 20ish year old man having intercourse with a 35ish year old woman who is revealed to have been in an intimate relationship with the same man’s older brother?
“Rebecca
Where ever you may be
Life sings you song as long as waves roar to the coast
Voices high in the air everywhere
Rebecca
Come back Rebecca
Your not meant to be a shadow of a ghost”
Rebecca The Musical
59 seconds ago. I have never felt such power.
You have an interesting username!
@@mirjanbouma Thank you. It's mostly just a reference to arsenic and old lace. And I just really like vanilla flavored things.
@@arsenicandvanilla3103 you're welcome!
"Is... almost doing something more feminist?"
If you believe the Disney Live Action Remakes, which bend over backwards to make their female leads appear more feminist while telling the exact same story as their predecessors, then yes, it is.
Actually, your conclusions point to a problem in current American mainstream filmmaking in general: apparently studios believe that their audiences will no longer accept a flawed protagonist, so they give their main characters the bare minnimum of flaws necessary to tell a story, which ultimately makes a lot of current films feel very bland. It appears audiences no longer accept a meek female lead or a domineering male lead, so both these characters had to be softened (which I fear will eventually lead to a new, more awful version of the Hays Code). We notice it more because the other problem with mainstream filmmaking nowadays is its relliance on existing IP, which means remakes and adaptations, which means we have something saltier to compare it to. Have you seen the new version of The Witches yet? It has some interesting ideas, but a lot of the same issues I mention here.
Finally, if you want to see Armie Hammer give a good performance, I recommend you watch The Social Network and Call Me By Your Name...
It is only "minority" leads that are not allowed to be flawed. White men can still be flawed protagonists. Hopefully they will get around this second level of sexism and make flawed females lead soon again too.
LOL I love when you people use Disney movies as an example for this argument.
People NOW can't tolerate flawed characters? Name one flaw the original cartoon Cinderella had.
He's also good in Sorry to Bother You (and hilariously ridiculous in The Man From U.N.C.L.E.)
@@annelooney1090 Pinochio made a lot of mistakes, and had to learn from them. Buzz Lightyear was dellusional for a long time.The original Mulan had to overcome her physical weakness and be the best instead of just being "magic".
@@Carewolf Yup, and Snow White was overly naïve and didn't follow stranger danger, Tramp gave Lady the illusion that his life was care-free and awesome without telling her about his sordid past, Simba had a ego and superiority complex as a cub and shunned responsibility for escapism as an adult, hell Kuzco had a huge ego and was a lil brat for most of his movie, I could go on but who has the time lol
Hi Italian here! I think that one of main problems of adaptation is how good the original material is. Both the book and the Hitchcock movie are classics, it would not be a stretch to call them masterpieces. A mediocre adaptation is kind of the worst sin you could commit in this case: at best it is going to be instantly forgotten, at worst it is going to diminish the original by flatteting its nuances and depth. That is what happened, imho, with the 1940 Disney adaptation of Pinocchio. I understand it is not a popular opinion, so please bear with me (and, to be clear, it is fine if you enjoy it, I concede that it has good animation). What makes it so bad is that it took a book that is, by all metrics, one of the greatest works of art of Italian literature and turned it into a 'feel-good' animation about fulfilling a wish (there is no such wish in the book), emptying it of all nuance and subtelty.
Uh... Isn't Maxim also the name of the lead douche in "The Mister?" Poor Dominic, EL James really IS haunting you.
Armie was really good in Call Me By Your Name, which is also based on a book, but I think that's mostly because he just had great chemistry with Timothee Chalmet.
Thats on my list. He has great comedic timing in Free Fire, but you have to love slow burn films for that
Yeah, and Chalamet still out-acts him and owns the movie
It think it helps that in call me by your name Armie isn't struggling with an English accent while trying to act.
I love that movie so much! I cry at the ending so much. And “Free Fire” was pretty uproarious with its ensemble cast
@@LucyLioness100 ANOTHER FREE FIRE FAN!
Have you seen the 90s adaptation? Charles Dance, Emilia Fox and Diana Rigg as the three leads, it's much better than this version.
That's actually my Favourite Film/ TV version.
I'd LOVE to see him do that version; it's my favorite. Charles Dance was perfect.
@@dawngrrrl
It's a great cast.
Though the 1979 version (Anna Massey and Jeremy Brett) is also impressive.
I love Lily James and Armie Hammer, I wanted this to be good. But no. Thanks Netflix.
Shes a homr wrecker
@@sweetbunnybun honestly... that's irrelevant and who really cares
Much like the new Mrs de'winter is in the shaddow of Rebecca the Netflix adaptation is in the shaddow of the Hitchcock version. Ironic really.
When I realized it had been 80 years since the last Rebecca, I was very open to this remake. I didn’t think it was horrible, but... it felt like just an “update” of the last movie. It didn’t do anything unique or interesting on its own, so it doesn’t feel very needed. Which is surprising-I felt like they could for sure do something new 80 years later?
Erm...there was a remake made starring Jeremy Brett( yes, Sherlock Holmes played Maxim Dewinter) in 1979
@@rimmersdoll3 I didn’t know about that one. Thanks
@@CsillanRose technically the latest remake was in 2008 by Italian cinema. Though there I had the problem the lead was too beautiful for her to feel insecure. 'I' was played by Christina Capotondi, aka the actress who did Sissi in the 2000s miniseries of Empress Sissi of the Hapsburgs. The previous version was in 1990s as a british miniseries and there Charles Dance does a spectacular Maxim for the most part though it was really Diana Rigg (better known for her role in GOT as 'The Queen of Thorns') as Mrs Danvers who stole the show for me.
there's also "Rebecca" miniseries with Emilia Fox and Charles Dance from the 90. Rather well written and performed as I remember.
@@thenewkhan4781 oh yeah that version was very good. Liked how they were flawed but a team in the trial.
Sam Riley and Kristin Scott Thomas were the only redeeming parts of this movie. Sam Riley should’ve been De Winter if you ask me. He can pull off sympathetic but mysterious and dangerous so well. Armie Hammer has the charisma of a crack in a wall. You sit there and go, “Yup. It sure is there. Wish it wasn’t.”
So much wrong with it. That beach scene should have had them arrested for indecent behaviour. The original character is the most humble scaredy cat in the world, she doesn't even dare THINK nasty thoughts and that makes her the perfect victim for Mrs Danvers, but in this movie she was just - sulky and sullen. Maxim made his interest way too clear, in the original she never really knew what he liked about her. Here she could at least think he liked her for her body. And they completely misinterpreted the role and social position of a companion. A companion isn't STAFF - she's not paid at all! She's a well-enough born pauper who has sufficient refinement to not offend in public, and she does it for her keep so her 'benefactor' is getting all the perks of a servant for nothing. And that means that although she was too shy to act on it, she was actually acceptable socially as a Mrs De Winter. A big part of the tension in the book was that she actually had all the answers at her fingertips, but she was just too timid and unassuming to realise.
I also think they needed to do more with Ben, he didn't drop enough clues that he was in on the Rebecca boat scuttle.
I liked the house though. And the big ocean waves were excellent.
No doubt the inspiration for Maxim in “The Mister”. Her inspirations and references are very very thinly veiled 😕
I don't know about Armie Hammer's acting being stiff, Dom. I mean, he looked like he could just eat Lily James up.
First Gus van Sant’s Psycho and now this. New rule of thumb, if Alfred Hitchcock made an adaptation, don’t remake it.
Am I the only one who thought Armie was why to young for DeWinter, like was he 13 when he married Rebecca
"Father O Father you've done me great wrong,
You've given me a boy, instead of a man..."
Even though you can consider the heroine of 'Rebecca' a pushover I was fascinated from the very first chapter how deeply she was able to experience every single occurence and person in her life on an emotional level.
Despite being oblivious to Maxim's hate for Rebecca she did understand his every expression, mannerism and word immediatly and acted on it. One of the reasons I loved the confession of murder and reveal of Maxim's true feelings is how the heroine found the courage and inner strengh that was within her all along (!) by deciding to stand by her husband no matter what. And although that was an inspiring moment for me, the reader, I still see pieces of the same pattern of obsession Mrs. Danvers has towards Rebecca. The way she kept repeating that Maxim didn't love Rebecca over and over in her head!
The story feels very human and emotional on a deep level through the narration of the main character. Hitchcock managed to recreate that through his amazing camera work and Joan Fontaine's acting. The new adaptation threw any subtlety out the window and took only the basic features of the characters needed for a shallow flashy romantic movie.
I tried watching it for the beautiful scenery and Armie Hammer who I love since 'Call Me by Your Name' but was so disgusted by the stupid choices in the script that I barely made it through half of it.
Seeing that you felt strongly enough about it to make this video gives me utter joy! They should stop spending money on unnecessary adaptations and remakes if they don't intent to honour the original in any way.
Have you perchance read Jasper Fforde’s literary satires, starting with ‘The Eyre Affair’ - which includes quite a few digs about the Mrs Danvers Spooky Housekeeper archetype? Tremendous fun, kind of a bookish Pratchett dry but perfect humour.
/me adds to reading list
Thanks for the tip! :)
Oh god i love those soooo much
I spy another intellectual! "Plock!""quothe the dodo.
Try watching Armie Hammer within “The Man from U.N.C.L.E” movie. He tries to pull off a Russian accent within the film and did an ok job of it.
I read the book years ago and barely remember the Hitchcock film. Have yet to see this one, but the adaptation that sticks in my head was the 90s BBC mini-series with Geogiana Darcy, The Queen of Thorns and Tywin Lanister. It's been a minute with that one, too, but I recall liking it.
It definitely has its moments, Diana Rigg as Mrs. Danvers is exquisite, and they definitely don't ignore the age gap between the narrator and Maxim, for better or for worse, but I definitely think it had its share of problems too (namely that it tried to have its cake and eat it too by making MdW way too confident in her personality, but still keeping plot points that rely on her being naive and lacking agency; also the 1920s setting that way did not gel with this story that is very much a product of the 1930s). I do appreciate it though for very obviously trying not to just be a copy of the Hitchcock film and trying to do its own thing in adapting the story
That Version was actually on ITV.
Shame that Armie Hammer dropped the ball in this movie, I was really looking forward to his performance :/
I always felt that Someone like Rufus Sewell or Matthew McFayden would have been a better fit in the role.
He's about as mysterious as a sack of flour. I don't know who dropped the ball and made all the actors as dull and edgeless as possible, but I'd bet on the director.
A decent actor but hideously miscast here.
I'm quite fond of him in general but I sure wouldn't have cast him as a brooding Gothic love interest.
Eamonn Deane McFayden would've been great, good idea!
7:59 hold it, EL James did that? That is very much a fanfiction thing, did she also put song lyrics?
Ooohhh yes. In every fucking book.
@@Dominic-Noble oh god, why? I hate it when fanfics do that. I mean, it’s fanfiction so it’s fine, but in a book? Seriously?
No Lily James honey go back to Cinderella and escape the Fifty Shades curse while you'll still can!
I'm curious. How can they modernize Rebecca? So much of the behaviors are culturally relevant to the times.
I genuinely liked it. I hadn’t read the book, but I had seen your lost in adaptation review. I’m more of a cinematography and score guy.
It might have also helped my opinion that I never watched 50 shades.
Omg you really just said "hella"... You have been in the US far too long
The one with Diana Rigg and Charles Dance is good, though. Not as good as the film, but still.
Same, the lead felt pretty weak in that one but Rigg and Dance made it enjoyable. Feels like the closest any of them have gotten to portraying Book Mrs.Danvers
Also Armie Hammer, woof. Perspective.
As someone who hasn’t read the book or seen any other adaptations, I thought Rebecca (2020) was just fine. Cinematically it was gorgeous. I could tell that the writing was a bit lackluster but I was still interested.
Seeing everyone say how awful it was just makes me excited to read the book, so I’m almost glad I watched this film first!
The only Rebecca movie adaptation I need is a professionally filmed version of the musical adaptation, because that one is really REALLY good.
With all the British actors running around in Hollywood, they go and hire that dude. Talk about a downgrade.
colin firth :)
Someone like Rufus Sewell or Matthew Macfadyen would have been a far better fit in the role.
@@eamonndeane587
For the last TV adaptation they cast Charles Dance.
Perfect (at the time, he'd be too old now).
@@pitbull635 exactly, then calling him an "old man" would be accurate.
I’d like for him to do a video on the short story, “Harrison Bergeron” with the short film, 2081
ua-cam.com/video/JfLXcIlmGNI/v-deo.html (best I could find)
yes please!
5 bucks right now
This movie would never have been made if the 50 Shades films hadn’t made gangbusters and they wanted in on that questionable consent by older rich men action.
There was a TV version with Charles Dance as Maxim, Emelia Fox as the Narrator, and Diana Rigg as Mrs Danvers that was really good. Honestly, okay, I don't remember a lot about it except watching Charles flippin' Dance and Diana flippin' Rigg chew scenery for a few nights entertainment. They got the age difference much closer to Du Maurier's book though than... this thing (he's too young, too nice, too handsome, she's too old.... *eyeroll*) and it was still some good television. Less gay subtext than Hitchcock (bummer) but also less "bury your gays" (which I personally appreciate). It's probably hard to find, but it was on Masterpiece Theatre on PBS and if you can find it, it's not Hitchcock but it's not bad either.
"It's almost like the guys who made this are under the impression this is a romance story instead of a gothic horror thriller." This. THIS! It's the main thing that puts the 40s version over the new one. Especially the dress moment, 100% agree.
...It's not as bad as the adaptation of We Have Always Lived In the Castle. Sorry to bring up another title, but the timeline is this: Watched Rebecca then finished WHALItC book last week (just happened that way) then watched the movie tonight and I'm baffled at the changes and complete misunderstanding of the source material. So I'm still hurt.
The point you make about the Netflix version being pretty forgettable really nails it for me - I first read Rebecca when I was maybe 12 years old and it was such an unforgettable and incredible experience, and for an adaptation of a story like that to be so completely forgettable is almost impressive
also Netflix had the AUDACITY to release it on the day before mine and joan fontaine's birthday
Pro: A proper Dom takedown.
Con: Seagull song earworm.