Ben Wheatley’s Rebecca is a slow psychological thriller. The Netflix movie centers around an emotional love story featuring Lily James and Armie Hammer. They prove the idea of love’s masking ability. People pay the price for being blinded by their partner. And in Rebecca, we see how blinding it really can be.
Love can also whisk you away into situations that you wouldn’t have ever imagined. And with these two as Maxim and Mrs. de Winter, their great chemistry carry out this film, Rebecca, to the very end.
People seem to ignore Armie Hammer has this air about him. This is a tall, beautiful man, with whom any woman would instantly fall in love. All those features are on full display as as Maxim de Winter. The way Lily James played into his persona with such infatuation really worked well on the screen.
She wanted him more than life itself. Just look at that in her eyes. Her body moves with his with fluid motion. It’s great to watch that happen on screen, something rarely visible today.
Rebecca’s Physicality and Emotion
James’ performance was physical and emotional, which was really interesting to watch. (Call it “The Cinefeels.”) You can feel what she felt. She truly gave such a strong performance and it was great seeing this side of her. She also went toe to toe with Mrs. Danvers (Kristin Scott Thomas), who also gave a fantastic performance.
At the forefront of this film — from a newlywed to an ex-wife — is a woman. We all get to not only watch that great energy, but experience it.
I’ve always been a fan of Ben Wheatley’s work. His direction for Rebecca was unique to his style. Much like my favorite aspects of this film being the beautiful custom and production design.
The only thing that may have been off-sync for me was the film’s editing. Rebecca seemed to jump quite a bit. I understood the choices, but for some reason, many of those choices didn’t translate well for me.
Rebecca has great performances, a strong score, and a very interesting story with a twist ending. The most important thing about the film is how one perceives love as perfection. It seems that whoever falls in love (especially those hopeless romantics), has a skewed perception of their partner. It doesn’t happen to everyone. In fact, a majority of the time, we can’t find that perfect person. Yet, if we are paying close attention, we will find someone who comes close to the idea of perfection.
And that is just fine with me. Be sure to check out Rebecca on Netflix on October 21.
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