Rebecca

With no knowledge of the original novel or the Hitchcock adaptation, I had a sense of intrigue in the build up to watching Rebecca. Sadly, for all the impressiveness of the costumes and locations, the current 5.8 rating is about right. I found myself watching and waiting for something to happen, rather than actually being engrossed in the story. It is rather dull and fragmented, with little suspense and characters you come to care little about. There seems to be little or no repercussions for anyone's actions, and the ending is rushed and cut to pieces. It felt like there was more story to tell but even two hours wasn't enough to fit it all in. Maybe a TV adaptation would have been a better idea....

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.

How can something, so beautiful, so twisted and so disturbing, be so boring?

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.

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