(Dir. Hitchcock 1940) NR, but it's pretty family friendly. Though, I doubt small children would want to watch it anyway. Rebecca tells the story of a woman who marries a rich man, Max de Winters, after a whirlwind romance at Monte Carlo. Their honeymoon phase abruptly ends when they move to de Winter's family home and the new Mrs. de Winters as well as Max (we never learn her real name, how messed up is that?) are haunted by the memory of Max's first wife, Rebecca. Whoever thought a whirlwind romance with a rich man could end badly? Mrs. de Winters in tormented by the fact that Rebecca was seemingly the perfect wife and woman, while she is still struggling to find her place in the world of the elite. This plot sounds really good and suspenseful, right? That's what I thought, and it was, eventually. But this movie spent way to much time in the exposition. You can call me a millennial spoiled by constant action, but this film did not need to be 2 hours and 10 minutes. *Spoiler* This film gave me serious Jane Eyre vibes. A woman fell in love with a man haunted by a past marriage. The man happens to be gruff, brooding, and rich. The man's family home is eventually burned down by someone involved with his past marriage, but in the end the two get their happily ever after. Am I talking about Jane Eyre or Rebecca? The world may never know. *End Spoiler* I don't have much to say about the style of filming in Rebecca. Probably because I spent the first half bored out of my mind and the second half obsessively comparing it to the 1943 Jane Eyre movie. BREAKING NEWS I just looked up the movie to see what year it was done AND JOAN FONTAINE LITERALLY PLAYED THE MAIN CHARACTER IN IT TOO. The conspiracy continues. Also The 1943 Jane Eyre features a young Elizabeth Taylor as Helen Burns. Sorry not sorry this article has turned into a shameless plug for Jane Eyre. Because I've spent a lot of this post semi-trashing the film I'm going to talk about how great the actors were. Joan Fontaine and Laurence Olivier were amazing as always. I could tell how good of an actress Fontaine is because of how much I hated the character that she played. This is just because I get second hand embarrassment really easily and for most of the film Fontaine's character is painfully awkward. PAINFULLY. I know this is intentional and part of setting up the story that the character is insecure and blah blah blah, but for me it was just a cringe fest. Yes I realize this is a very backhanded compliment and I just said I wanted to make up for ragging on the film BUT STILL. Anyway the acting was amazing. I really believe the woman who played Mrs. Danvers is crazy though, no one is that good of an actress. Overall, I didn't hate this film. I might watch it again just in order to appreciate the filming style more. I'm sure Hitchcock included some really great symbolism and scenes I missed because I was too busy thinking about Jane Eyre. My recommendation to people that think this plot sounds interesting though is to watch the 1943 Jane Eyre first and if you still want to watch Rebecca go ahead. Stay tuned for next week's Halloween review! tl;dr This film isn't bad, but I'd recommend that you watch the 1943 Jane Eyre instead. They're basically the same thing, but Jane Eyre has better plot execution.
1 Comment
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Aubrey KirchhoffI'm just screaming into the void and somehow getting graded on it. Archives
April 2018
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