Rebecca

I had such high hopes for this, anticipation was high, especially as new material has been somewhat thin on the ground this year, for obvious reasons.

I did raise an eyebrow when I heard that Armie Hammer had been cast as Maxim, but I felt he did a decent job, it gives me hope for his upcoming part in Death on the Nile.

The standout for me was Kristin Scott Thomas, she was a fearsome Mrs Danvers, very impressive.

The film itself, very stylish, and had some good moments. If I'm totally honest, I was a tad disappointed, I think the pacing was a bit off, it perhaps felt a bit rushed at the ending.

A few reviewers calling for no remakes, and yes the 1940 adaptation is the ultimate, but come on, many of us love seeing a retelling. However, if you haven't seen the adaptation with Olivier and Fontaine, I urge you to, it captures the atmosphere beautifully.

Overall, it's a good watch, maybe it's the sinister atmosphere that's perhaps lacking. 6/10.

If you watched the original version of this film before watching this remake you will definitely prefer the old version directed by Alfred Hitchcock.

With such a great cast, I expected this to be a better movie. I don't know if it was a poor screenplay or muddy direction but the film felt hectic, choppy and melodramatic. I'm sorry to say I haven't read the novel by Daphne du Maurier, which has been such a perennial favourite that it has never been out of print, and, the Hitchcock version of the book won an Oscar in 1940. So, I'm going to hazard a guess it is not the source matter. It's too bad to have wasted the talents of Lily James, Armie Hammer and Kristin Scott Thomas (and a small role for Keeley Hawes). I give this film a 5 (off) out of 10. {Mystery}

It just kept me going back and forth, and I thought I'd land in a good place in the end, but no.

The first half was good, but the second half is when everything started to fall apart for me.

Without revealing too much, in the second half, especially towards the end (like the last half hour), the dialogue turned awkward & inconsistent. The events including significant revelations were RUSHED so much that there was no build up to them nor enough time to let them sink in before moving on to the next scene. The reactions to some news or events within the plot were dull & lacked sincerity and passion.

The editing for those scenes didn't help either. It just kept jumping too fast to the next scene or cut to a different frame in a different location in the middle of a revealing conversation. That's when they lost me. The emotional connection I wanted to feel for the characters kept being interrupted.

Though I still kept an open mind and was hoping I'll be pleasantly surprised that I'll love this movie by the end of it, but unfortunately, it just kept going the same kind of direction till the movie was over.

I've been looking forward to this, and even with my expectations being reasonable and not too high, I still didn't get what I wanted.

And just to be clear, I'm not comparing this to Hitchcock's version. In fact, I've never even seen it. So this is solely based on the execution of the story in this specific movie. It simply didn't do it for me.

There should be a rule, don't remake a great classic movie if you have nothing new or interesting to add to it. This looked like the Hallmark version of Hitchcock's classic film noir. Lilly James is overacting the shy, inexperienced character, she walks like Forrest Gump in some scenes, for example where she's following Rebecca's ghost at the party. She also pouts all the time. Armie Hammer has the intensity of a carrot, he's too vanilla for the role. His suits are horrible, badly tailored, the mustard suit in the beginning is an eye sore. Kristin Scott Thomas as Mrs Danvers is the only saving grace of this movie. And finally, the cinematography is bad. It's like somebody wanted to make a rom com and changed their mind in the last minute. Those happy, ultra saturated colors don't fit the mood of a dark gothic romance novel in the least.