After reviewing Ben Wheatley’s last film in an official capacity earlier this year with Happy New Year, Colin Burstead (or, under its superior working title, Colin You Anus), I was looking forward to seeing what he’d come up with next. I’m always thankful for movies that give me juicy details to write about, and quite frankly, domestic black comedy retellings of Shakespearean war stories don’t exactly fall out of the sky. So it comes as a heavy disappointment that this film underperforms as badly as it does, to the point where it’s an open question as to why he even made it to begin with. Well, while I can think of at least one reason why he did so, it’s far from enough to explain its worth on its own.
And on its own is how I’m going to be viewing it, since I haven’t read the original book nor have I seen any of the other adaptations, namely Hitchcock’s 1940 version (I’ll get to the public stoning for not having seen a Hitchcock movie some other time). I get the feeling that I’m not the only Netflix subscriber who will go into this on those terms, so let’s view it as its own narrative. And as its own narrative, it’s phenomenally unable to maintain interest. It starts out well enough, with Lily James falling in love with Armie Hammer over a European fling (basically the straight answer to Call Me By Your Name), and regardless of anything else, the visuals are absolutely incredible. The bright colour palette, the scenery, the dream imagery, not to mention some terrific editing from Jonathan Amos; Laurie Rose and company deserve credit for their work here, same with Clint Mansell’s reliably eerie and rustic soundtrack.
But when the scene shifts to stately Manderley, the writing basically collapses in on itself and the mood tanks right along with it. The romantic chemistry between Hammer and James pretty much evaporates and never manages to recover, the attempts at psycho-thrills to do with James as the replacement for the titular character in the eyes of the kitchen staff and basically everyone who knew Rebecca fall flat, and for a film about a deranged housekeeper trying to make a newlywed kill herself, the lack of tension or dread of any description is baffling. It gets across the insidiousness of what Mrs. Danvers is doing (with Kristin Scott Thomas doing her best to sell the undercooked character she’s been saddled with), but it never becomes something to be scared of. Slightly bothered by, perhaps, but that’s about it.
Even without having seen previous versions of this, I still find myself pointing to the writers attached to this as a fairly easy explanation for why this is the way it is. Jane Goldman has had some successful collaborations with Matthew Vaughn in the past, but even those aren’t consistent, and co-writers Joe Shrapnel and Anna Waterhouse not only helped create The Aftermath (another malformed period romance) but also Seberg, where the treatment of its real-life inspiration has only grown more and more distasteful the more time passes since I initially reviewed it. With all that in mind, yeah, I totally get why this feels as wonky as it does.
So why did Ben Wheatley do this? Well, if I had to guess, it wasn’t because of any particular interest in this story as romance or as psychological drama. Going by the societal commentary in quite a few of his movies, Colin You Anus included, I think it’s the potential for class critique in the story that got his attention. The idea of a young woman basically marrying into the upper class, with the vast majority of those in that class insisting that she doesn’t belong there and not fit to be in the shoes of her predecessor; social pressure against upward mobility in action.
Speculation on my part, admittedly, but it would make sense out of how those moments end up being the most impactful here. Treating the divide between the classes as an example of psychological warfare is a decent idea, and with the initial scenes of James and Hammer together, it certainly had me invested in seeing her push past those obstacles to be with the one she loves… but again, that’s short-lived.
Yeah, even though I can see at least some merit in what is being attempted here, that doesn’t change the fact that those attempts largely fail. As radiant as the visuals are, as solid as the film craft is, and how well-cast quite a lot of the characters are, the watered-down script combined with the off-putting methodology end up knee-capping a lot of this film’s potential worth.
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