With the right movie wrapped around them, they could have been something.īut Wheatley-who specializes in thrillers with a macabre vibe, like Kill List (2011) and High-Rise (2015)-overhandles and overworks the dough of Du Maurier’s basic story.

James has the requisite dreaminess wrapped around a core of iron Hammer’s stalwart elegance can be a malevolent force, when required. You can stammer all you want about the irreplaceability of Hitchcock’s Rebeccalicious duo, Joan Fontaine and Laurence Olivier, and their understated tweed-and-cashmere symphonics, but James and Hammer also could have made something of these roles. Both spring from the same source material, Daphne Du Maurier’s dashingly popular 1938 novel, and the new movie’s casting- Lily James plays the young woman of lowly birth who becomes the second wife of Armie Hammer’s brooding blueblood with a secret-isn’t its main problem. You don’t have to revere Alfred Hitchcock’s trimly tailored 1940 gothic romance Rebecca to dislike, or even just be confused by, Ben Wheatley’s self-consciously kooky 2020 version, a movie whose “Look at me!” style takes the story’s inherent, tasteful steaminess and pastes googly eyes on it.

Rebecca netflix