The new version of 'Rebeca': Why? For what?

Movies

Cult English director Ben Wheatley revisits Daphne du Maurier's novel that brought Hitchcock to the cinema and is losing in all comparisons

In the year 1940, and become the director's most important film in Britain thanks to films like The

,

and

,

, how could it be otherwise, because it was the univocal destiny of all the great filmmakers of the Old Continent.

The man in charge of taking him across the Atlantic was none other than producer David O. Selznick, who had become one of the most powerful men in the film industry thanks to the unprecedented success of

.

Joan Fontaine, Laurence Olivier and Judith Anderson in the 1940 Alfred Hitchcok version.

His first project was the adaptation of a novel between black, romantic and gothic by the British writer Daphne du Maurier

,

, starring two great stars of the time such as Laurence Olivier and Joan Fontaine and which told the story of a low-class young woman that she fell madly in love with an aristocrat, married him and when she moved to his mansion she found the harsh reality of a housekeeper who made her life impossible and the ghostly presence of her husband's first wife, precisely Rebecca of the title.

The film garnered monumental success, both with the public and critics, won the Oscar for Best Picture and almost immediately went on to become

.

Until today.

Well, in this increasingly black 2020, as if we did not have enough with everything we have on top of us, it has occurred to some enlightened person that it was time to make

that, produced by Netflix ,

(which is nothing but a nice euphemism to define theaters that accept the draconian screening conditions imposed by Netflix).

Armie Hammer and Lily James.

And it is not just any project, but a frankly ambitious one, directed by Ben Wheatley, a cult British filmmaker thanks to titles such as

or

, and starring two fashionable actors, Armie Hammer (

) and Lily James (

), accompanied by one of the great ladies of European cinema, Kristin Scott-Thomas.

Obviously, comparisons are always obnoxious, but

.

The unhealthy and disturbing atmosphere, but very real and close, that Hitchcock achieved here becomes a kind of abstract nightmare closer to horror movies that are in style lately than to the suspense and intrigue that history requires, for the sake of a setting. in a far-fetched and baroque scene, full of dramatic dream scenes that contribute little.

Without committing a spoiler, because by now everyone knows what the film is about, it is true that this adaptation is somewhat more faithful to the literary original, because

.

Which is the perfect excuse for Wheatley to put a radical twist on James' Mrs. Winter's character (who remains unnamed) and turn her into an empowered and feisty woman, capable of anything to get her way. to impose their convictions, far from that other Mrs. De Winter de Fontaine, somewhat naive, who did everything for love.

And that, to top it all, does not wear cardigans ...

That, not to mention how stale it is, in the middle of 2020, to pose a film about not granted divorces, marital infidelities, illegitimate pregnancies, Victorian mansions with housekeepers, company ladies of old spinsters, women who dare to drive cars ...

when the novel was published and the first film was shot,

.

"Last night I dreamed I was going back to Manderlay ...".

Was it really necessary to return?

According to the criteria of

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