Daphne Du Maurier's Rebecca - book vs. film

 

All of the posts on my blog so far have been straightforward book reviews - no messing about. But since I love this platform so much, I've been thinking about branching out into more varied posts. For example: monthly reading wrap-ups; favourite books of the year; top ten *insert genre here* recommendations. For anyone reading this who has any other suggestions, I'd love to hear them so please do let me know. For this post I'll be writing about the 2020 Netflix film Rebecca, which is, of course, adapted from the famous Du Maurier novel (which also happens to be one of my all-time favourite books). It's safe to say that after writing my bachelor's dissertation about the novel and having read it numerous times, I know it pretty well. I've also seen the 1940 Alfred Hitchcock adaptation of the book which I'll be using as a comparison in this post, too. This is probably going to be a fairly long analysis so cups of tea at the ready!

First impressions to start off. Before watching the new film, I naturally had some preconceptions about the casting (rightly or wrongly), some of which were reinforced after watching and others dispelled. It's always difficult to know who you would personally choose to play your favourite book characters in a film version, and everyone probably has very different pictures in their own heads. For one, I didn't imagine Armie Hammer as Maxim when reading this book. He's an actor I was unfamiliar with but this certainly wasn't the striking, moody and formidable character I imagined. Lily James is an actress whom I like, but having seen her perform previously in films like Baby Driver, Cinderella and Mamma Mia, it was difficult to move away from that bubblegum-sweet persona she usually embodies. Yes, Mrs de Winter is naïve and innocent when she first arrives at Manderley but she definitely develops gumption and more of an edge, which perhaps wasn't entirely captured by James' performance. That being said, however, I thought she did a really good job and I liked the way she brought the character to the screen.

The main thing to love about this film is the scenery, composition of the shots and the artful editing. It is certainly very aesthetically-pleasing, stylised and beautiful to look at, but is it a case of style over substance? Perhaps. The landscapes are certainly awe-inspiring, but there was more of a focus on the scenery of Monte Carlo than of Manderley, which I felt was lacking. The wild, foreboding landscape of Cornwall is the most gothic element of the book, in my opinion, and there wasn't a lot made of this in the film. It's difficult to do a direct comparison, naturally, when there is only so much you can fit into a feature-length compared to a pretty substantially-sized novel, but I wish they had focused more attention on the little beach cove and hut where Ben often resides - this was largely glossed over and I felt that this was fairly important to Du Maurier's story. 

In terms of plot, the film was for the most part true to the original book. Certain elements were cut short or made more brief, which is to be expected, but in particular the latter half, I felt, was a little rushed. Maxim's trial could have been explored in more depth and I would have appreciated some reconstructions of events. (SPOILER ALERT!) The death of Rebecca was conveyed in much more depth in the book and the producers of the film really missed a trick here. It would have benefited from a reconstruction of her death, perhaps with blurred-out faces or impaired views of the events, but hinting at the action in a more tangible way. Maxim's half-hearted story was a real disappointment for me as this is the climax of the book and could have been much more dramatised for on-screen. 

In all, I enjoyed the film but could not bring my thoughts away from the book, which is so iconic and memorable. I was slightly uncertain about some of the casting but Lily James did a good job of the lead and the story was fairly well followed. I'm planning to re-read Rebecca this month as it's been a few years since I read it last, so perhaps it will reinforce the way I'm feeling about the film.