I really liked Ben Wheatley’s REBECCA. With the impossible task of competing with Hitchcock’s Oscar-winning black-and-white classic, Ben Wheatley and co take a different path, turn a modern eye to a vintage tale and have produced something sumptuous, grand and enthralling. This is simply gorgeous to look at, with lavish production design, rich colours and, in the latter stretch Wheatley’s usual twisted and surreal visuals invading the earthly plane. Clint Mansell’s eerie score envelops you and never lets go. Lily James is mesmerising, Kristen Scott-Thomas unsettling and Sam Reilly entertainingly oily. Armie Hammer doesn’t quite leave the mark he should as one of the most unlikeable characters in literature, but he certainly looks the part and you understand the soon-to-be-Mrs DeWinter falling head over heels for him far more easily than you did when he was played by Laurence Olivier. Give Wheatley some more classic Gothic adaptations ASAP! SSP
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Sam Sewell-Peterson
Writer and film fanatic fond of black comedies, sci-fi, animation and films about dysfunctional families.
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