/Haley Adams

English 160

Section 001

Unit 2 Film Review

The film “Rebecca” is based on the book by Daphne du Maurier. Released in 2020, the

British romantic thriller film was directed by Ben Wheatley, from a screenplay by Jane

Goldman, Joe Shrapnel, and Anna Waterhouse the protagonist, played by Lily James, is a shy

and self-conscious young woman from a lower-middle-class background. She begins the film as

a “paid companion” to Mrs. Van Hopper, a wealthy American woman. The character is left

unnamed, that is until she marries Maxim De Winter.

The man is a rich widower who owns an ancestral Cornish estate, called Manderley.

After finding the damsel in distress, shortly after the couple’s courtship, they are married. The

protagonist moves into the estate with her husband on the English coast. Here, she starts to battle

being in the shadow of Maxim’s first wife, Rebecca. Rebecca’s haunting legacy is kept alive by

Manderley’s housekeeper, Mrs. Danvers. The protagonist, known as Mrs. De Winters, when

married, is compared to Rebecca by everyone in the Manderley estate. This starts to haunt her, as

she thinks Maxim loves Rebecca more than he loves his new wife, even in her death. The

protagonist is told by others surrounding the estate that Rebecca was killed in a boating accident,

and that Maxim discovered her body two months later, but they never found the boat. Eventually,

the boat is found with Rebecca in it, killed. Maxim explains to Mrs. De Winter that he murdered

his wife because she cheated on him and was carrying her cousin, Jack Favell’s, baby. Maxim

describes the situation as she led him to the killing and he didn’t have any other choice. After

being taken to prison for the murder, the protagonist finds Rebecca’s files at the doctor she went
to. She finds that Rebecca was not pregnant, but instead had terminal cancer that had taken over

her reproductive system. After finding this out, the case is changed to a suicide, because she was

going to die soon anyway. At the end of the film, it shows the protagonist and Maxim living a

happy life and “winning” over Rebecca.

The top genre of the film is Romance. Followed by thriller, horror, and mystery. These

genres are shown through the screenplay and overall mood of the film. There are many

passionate and intimate scenes, displaying the romantic idea. The horror and mystery are not

displayed until the protagonist enters the estate with her new husband. The overall mood of the

film is dark, mysterious, and unsettling. At first, the film shows a naturalistic style of England in

the 1930s. We see vibrant colors (mostly worn by the rich), along with mesmerizing nature

views, as well as light-colored architecture revealing a sense of freshness. The quality of the

lighting before the move to the estate is cheery, bright, and high quality. Though, shortly after

arriving at Manderley, the feeling of the visual style changes completely. At Manderley, the

lighting in the shots is very dark and dreary. Even the architecture is darker and duller. The

surrounding scenes are sharp rocks and a treacherous ocean. The mood is flipped to unsettling

and dreary.

The intended audience of this film can be inferred to be teenagers to adults, mostly

women. The film is intriguing to women because the main character is one. In the trailer, the film

shows intimacy and passion between a young adult girl and an older man. This can attract young

adult women. The film takes place in England in the 1930s. Through the aspects of culture and

women’s lived experiences, issues like class and gender differences are shown. In this time and

place in history, women did not have their rights yet, especially socially. The social classes were

extremely separated in terms of wealth. The depiction of class is shown dominantly at the
beginning of the film. The protagonist is thoroughly judged by Mrs. Van Hopper, and Mrs. Van

Hopper’s friends because of her class. She is even shown to have more dull and lifeless clothes

when she is compared to the rich women at the place where Mrs. Van Hopper, is staying. To

dine in the hotel-type place her boss is staying, she needs to be accompanied by someone who is

an “actual” resident. To dine, Maxim notices her and ushers her over to sit with him. This shows

in a woman’s lived experience how some women can only get so far without a man’s help. Also,

the protagonist is seen as stupid because she is a woman who is from the lower class. The film

depicts her running around tirelessly and messing up an “easy” job. She makes a fool of herself

and is shown as a damsel in distress, which is how some women are still perceived in society

today.

The judgment and expectations of women in society are also illustrated in the film. In the

theme I am about to describe, I feel like this still stands today in our modern society. When the

protagonist’s boss finds out she has been sneaking around with Maxim, the way she calls her out

shows the stigmatism of women and sex in the 1930s. She is looked down upon for being with

this man. Mrs. Van Hopper asks the girl, “Have you been doing things you shouldn’t?” She ends

the conversation with the advice: “When you trap a man between your legs, they don’t stick

around for long”. This is placing the blame on the protagonist for “letting” him be intimate with

her. She is seen as “trapping” him for doing so. This also illustrates the notion that women are

only good for sex, and a man will get bored of that eventually. The protagonist is made to feel

guilty for having sex with a man she loves.

The film also depicts the experience of jealousy and comparison to other women. This

still happens today in society and in my personal life I have noticed. In the film, the new wife is

jealous of the former wife, a trope nowadays where the new girlfriend is forced to compare
herself to the ex-girlfriend. This shows the living experience of always being compared to other

women around you, especially when it comes to physical looks. Mrs. Danvers introduces this

conflict to the protagonist. She explains how Rebecca is better than the protagonist in many

ways, including her thick brown hair, her tallness, her physical body, and more. Many times, the

protagonist is told that she will never compare to Rebecca. This is something that every woman

deals with in her lifetime: comparison to other women, and not being “good enough” for a man.

This story can definitely happen today, portrayed in modern-day society. A damsel-in-

distress-woman in 2024 can fall in love with a very handsome rich older man and quickly fall

under his love spell. She might be working some sort of low-paying job and jumps at the

opportunity to live with the man she has quickly fallen in love with, living in his ravish house.

Instead of maids and an estate, she could stay at home because he makes enough money. People

like his friends and family could tell her about how beautiful his ex-wife was, and the protagonist

could still feel her in their home. The same events of the wife cheating on Maxim and him

murdering her, as well as the protagonist helping to cover it up, could all still happen.

The major characters in this film include the protagonist, known as Mrs. De Winter once

married, Mr. Maxim De Winter, and Rebecca (even in death). The protagonist portrays the

stereotypical feminine woman. She can portray what masculine men need in a woman to boost

their ego and make them feel good about themselves and their identity. The protagonist

completely worships Maxim right when she meets him. She is depicted as extremely passive,

always saying sorry and never taking up too much space. She does whatever people tell her to,

especially Maxim, and gives the man all the power. The only time the narrator was happy was

when Maxim was showing his love to her. Much like how some stereotypical men wish all

women were, she was obsessed with having him love her and always focused on keeping him
happy. She has no self-identity and lets Maxim take over her whole life, which she is ecstatic

about. In the end, all she cares about is love, and not what is really the right thing to do. Mrs. De

Winter exclaims at the end of the film, “I know that I have made the right decision…to save the

one thing walking through flames for. Love”. This shows that men and society want women that

only care about love and their husbands.

Maxim portrays the stereotypical patriarchal man in society. He represents masculine

power in society. Even after the murder, he ended up getting away with it in court. He ends up

getting away with it because of the people surrounding him and how much power he has over all

of them. Since he kills his wife because she is getting too powerful, this shows that he wants to

keep his masculine power. Anyone that will try to take that away from him will not win. This

represents patriarchy in society, even today.

Rebecca portrays a woman denying the social norms of a pleasant wife in the 1930s. She

made her name for herself, in contrast to the protagonist who remains nameless. Rebecca did not

let marriage consume her whole identity, in contrast to the stereotypical 1930s wife, whose only

identity was the fact that she was married. She was achieving the same level of power as her

husband, and he was afraid that she was “taking his name,” as he explains to the protagonist. He

was intimidated by her individuality and power. Rebecca is not loved by Maxim, as he finally

tells the new Mrs. De Winter in one of the last scenes of the film. He tells his wife that he hates

Rebecca because she was horrible to him (for wanting to have her own power and not just stay in

her husband’s shadow, as the protagonist does). This shows women in society who do not

conform to the expectations of society will not be loved by men. It also shows, in the

protagonist’s story, that being loved by a man is all a woman needs in life to be happy and

fulfilled. The protagonist has a disturbing reaction once Maxim explains how Rebecca died.
Instead of being upset and scared that he murdered his last wife, all she cares about is the fact

that he loves her, and not Rebecca. When she hears the story, she is relieved.

Because of the things Rebecca does and stands for, she is punished in this story. The

protagonist, for going along with whatever her husband wants, and finding pleasure in it, is

rewarded by society and gets to live. Since Rebecca is killed, it shows how society looks down

on women who defy norms and have power over men. It shows that you must care only about

loving a man, and not being confident in yourself.

Mts. Danvers can represent two different things in the film. She can be representing

society constantly comparing women to one another. She also represents a feminist character in

society, standing up for the women who do not have voices for themselves, and spreading their

legacy. The thing that the film failed to do was to have Mrs. Danvers be known as the villain and

antagonist in the story. Yes, she was against the protagonist, but it is completely anti-feminist to

have the shy stereotypical wife “win” in this sense. Mrs. Danvers exclaims, “She lived her life as

she pleased, my Rebecca. No wonder a man had to kill her.” However, instead of gaining power,

Mrs. Danvers ended up committing suicide because she couldn’t stand to see Maxim win his

power back. The two feminist characters in the film, Rebecca and Mrs. Danvers, died. If this was

a more feminist film, we would see Maxim getting put in prison, and the protagonist fighting

against him to put him in prison instead of staying in his shadow as his reserved wife.

This film might have been trying to portray women’s confidence at the end of the movie.

The protagonist “wins” in life and finally gets her husband and what she wants out of life. She

also took the initiative to read the files of Rebecca’s doctor to find out that she was not pregnant

with her lover’s child but instead had cancer of the reproductive system. By the end of the

movie, Mrs. De Winters is shown years later, and she has finally found her confidence and
identity. If this was the filmmakers trying to portray feminism, it did not work. The only reason

the protagonist found confidence was through her husband loving her and her marriage working

out. In reality, Maxim does not treat her well at all. The only times we see him treating her

“good” are in intimate scenes and showing his physical affection.

In filmmaking, never once do we see the protagonist and Maxim talking about her life

and her wants and aspirations. Instead, the film shows them falling in love through passionate

intimate scenes. When they first sat together at breakfast and started to like each other, we do not

see the insight in this scene. It’s like it’s not important to the filmmakers to show a woman

talking about her life; only showing her sexual scenes.

The film also shows that Maxim loves the protagonist the most in the scenes where she

modifies to his wishes and acts how he wants a woman to. When they are having issues, Maxim

tells the protagonist, “I miss that lost look.” This describes the person she was when they first

met, and how she was lost and powerless and needed him. The film showing that this kind of

woman is what is appealing does not show feminism in any way. Also, to the protagonist in the

story, the murder of Rebecca was proved to be the only thing left to do because Rebecca was

such a terrible wife. This is blaming the woman for being killed because she did not follow social

norms. If we think about it, the protagonist should be the real villain in this story, including

Maxim. Rebecca and Mrs. Danvers, instead of being villains for the protagonist, should be seen

as heroes for defying the social norms of a woman in society and not conforming to what men

want.

I chose this film because I had heard of it before a few years ago. I watched the trailer,

and I liked the Gothic mood in it. The uneasiness and horror-like tone of the film was enticing to

me. I was surprised to see that Rebecca’s feminist nature was not shown in the trailer. This
shows that the film is not supposed to be known for that, therefore anti-feminist. Instead, the film

is known for its romance and beating all odds for the ones you love. I could tell that something

was off and that it had to be deeper than just a romance film. The film shows the cultural

implication of how women get treated in society, and how “wins” usually in society for

conforming to rules. However, I felt like the movie was definitely on the protagonist’s side,

making Rebecca out to be the bad wife and the villain for hurting Maxim’s power and ego. I do

not agree with the film that Rebecca deserved what happened to her, and that the protagonist was

the good person in the movie.

The limitations of the movie include making the protagonist seem to have no self-identity

and no goals in life other than for a man to love her. Even the way Maxim and the protagonist

“fell in love” was shown in snippets of them laughing and intimate scenes. This portrays an

“ideal’ version of love that is just not real or attainable. The film does show that Mrs. De Winters

still has nightmares about Rebecca, but it does not phase her because of her love for Maxim. The

film did not show what the protagonist actually wanted and we did not even hear her opinions on

anything except her love for Maxim. Maybe this was on purpose, to show that she didn’t care

about anything else. If so, this shouldn’t have been the character that ended up “winning” in the

end.

“A More Intense Rebecca”, a scholarly source written by Lisa van den Helm gives some

more insight into the opinions of others towards the film. In this comparative textual analysis of

the female, the writer compares the 1940 Rebecca film (based directly on the book), and the

Rebecca film from 2020. Interestingly enough, the book was written by a woman. The movie

was produced by a man but was more of a direct copy of the book. The writer explains that the

2020 film, produced and modified by a man, is slightly different in the views of the protagonist
than the original book/film. This writer sees a difference between the 1940 and 2020 films when

it comes to sex and passionate scenes. In the 1940 film, intimate scenes were not shown, and

passion between the wife and husband was not shown. After being re-done 80 years later, by a

man, of course, there are more intimate scenes. This shows that in society, especially in

filmmaking, the sexualization of women has become something important to a PG-13 film. The

writer also examines how Maxim does not let the protagonist drive his car in the 1940 film. This

can be based on the 2020 film trying to show some sense of feminism. Though HE is the one

LETTING her drive the car and only giving her power when he wants to. The protagonist also

has more jealousy of Rebecca than she portrayed in the 1940 film. This can also show how in

more modern society women are compared to each other more intensely.

Another scholarly source written by Felicia Coursen studies the book Rebecca, written in

1938. Instead of Mrs. Danvers being an old lady, she was young and around Rebecca’s age. In

the written story, it can be inferred that Mrs. Danvers had sexual desires for Rebecca, insinuating

lesbianism. Maurier, the writer herself, was known for having relations with another woman

actress. The writer explains how Maurier could have written Mrs. Danvers as a lesbian because

Maurier could not be open about that sexual desire in her reality. Compared to the 2020 film,

produced by a man, did not include Mrs. Danvers being lesbian. Instead, she was an old lady

who watched Rebecca grow up and followed her to Manderley, almost like a mother figure. This

shows how in today’s society, films are centered around sex and love between a man and a

woman. It shows how lesbianism is not enticing and how the producers of the 2020 film did not

see it as important or describable to bring into the film.

From watching and connecting this film to my personal life, I have made connections

about what society wants. The film shows how most of the time, the women who let men walk
all over them and do not have a voice for themselves, “win” love. This is deemed true in modern-

day society, I just had never thought of it this way before. It can also show that in film, feminist

stories are not as enticing as romantic and intimate movies. The film shows that women are

supposed to do whatever they can to make their man or husband happy, and if he ends up happy,

they should never feel unfulfilled. The thing that is sad to me is the connection that the woman

who defies gender stereotypes does not win. And the person who stands up for her even in death,

Mrs. Danvers, ends up committing suicide. It is a horror film that shows an example of

patriarchy winning once again.