Netflix ‘Rebecca’ update doesn’t fit the 21st century

Above : Armie Hammer and Lily James star in “Rebecca.” (Netflix)

Movie review: “Rebecca,” directed by Ben Wheatley, starring Lily James, Armie Hammer, Kristin Scott Thomas, San Riley. Streaming through Netflix.

The opening line of Daphne du Maurier ’s 1938 novel “Rebecca” is one of the most recognizable in all of English literature. Du Maurier’s narrator, an unnamed 20-something woman, says, “Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again.”

That same line begins most, if not all, of the many adaptations – stage, television and screen – that have been made of the book, including what is perhaps the best known, Alfred Hitchcock’s 1940 film version that stars Joan Fontaine, Laurence Olivier, Judith Anderson and George Saunders.

Now we have a new adaptation , directed by Ben Wheatley , which stars Lily James , Armie Hammer , Kristin Scott Thomas and Sam Riley . And while it’s difficult to fault either the efforts of the cast or Wheatley’s attempts to capture a sense of the mid-1920s – when du Maurier’s story is set – it’s still appropriate to ask … well, why? Is “Rebecca” something that holds any relevance to today’s movie audiences?

Not that we haven’t had remakes of other classic films in recent years. In particular, Greta Gerwig’s 2019 remake of Louisa May Alcott’s “Little Women” took what past productions had to offer – including Mervyn LeRoy’s 1949 version and Gillian Armstrong’s 1994 adaptation – and created something that was faithful to Alcott’s source material while managing to update the storyline in a way that fits with 21st-century attitudes.

Wheatley isn’t nearly as successful. But then, working from a team-written script, there are any number of reasons why.

As you might expect, James – who has starred in a number of films, from a “Cinderella” remake to “Baby Driver” and last year’s Beatles homage “Yesterday” – stars as our narrator (which is how du Maurier, having never given her character a name, refers to her). After delivering that familiar opening line, she reveals that she is the personal companion (read handmaid) to a wealthy woman (played, with no little bit or irony, by Ann Dowd, who was so memorable in the Hulu miniseries version of Margaret Atwood’s novel “The Handmaid’s Tale” ).

Unhappy in her role, but having no resources of her own, our young narrator labors for her spoiled, mean-spirited employer during their stay in a posh hotel on the Mediterranean coast. Soon, though, she attracts the attention of – and is attracted in turn by – a middle-age widower, Maxim de Winter (played by Hammer). And after a mere two weeks, the two impetuously decide to marry.

That’s how quickly it takes for our narrator to transform from little more than a mere girl into Mrs. Maxim de Winter, resident and now matron of the Cornwall estate of Manderley. Ah, but if only the assumption of her new role were that easy.

Because not only does the new Mrs. de Winter have to deal with the head housekeeper Mrs. Danvers (played with sinister effect by Scott Thomas), she quickly discovers that the specter of the former – and late – Mrs. de Winter still haunts the estate’s vast corridors. Naïve and all too impressionable, the new Mrs. de Winter comes to believe that her husband still mourns the loss of his first wife.

It doesn’t help when Mrs. Danvers, whose malicious intentions become more obvious as time passes, tricks our narrator into holding a huge ball and, without the knowledge of her husband, dressing up to look like his former wife. The evening ends disastrously and furthers the new Mrs. de Winter’s belief that she’ll never measure up.

And this is all before a sunken boat is discovered, one with a corpse on board, Mr. de Winter is accused of murder, and is subjected to blackmail by a “friend” of his ex-wife’s (the role played by Riley). This series of sudden events brings du Maurier’s story to a climax – and the narrator to a point at which a new-found sense of maturity and confidence begins to blossom.

The problem, of course, is that all of this played better in 1940 than it does in 2020. James is good as du Maurier’s protagonist, but Wheatley’s film overall suffers from a feeling that it is a museum piece, not just of plotting but of character development. The notion that a young woman would fall so easily into a relationship with a man twice her own age is antiquated, even if that man is Armie Hammer (who, by the way, is only three years older than James’ real-life age of 31).

And the fact that she would put up with the kinds of abuse that both he and Mrs. Danvers throws at her is also … well, certainly not in keeping with today’s Me, Too sensibilities. So while this new “Rebecca” looks good, and is fairly true to what novelist du Maurier created, it fails to have any real meaning in today’s world.

Wheatley should have paid attention to another 20th-century writer, Thomas Wolfe, the title of whose posthumous novel pretty much says it all: “ You Can’t Go Home Again.”

Even, or especially, if that home is called Manderley.