My Cousin Rachel
Adapted by director Roger Michell from the novel by Daphne du Maurier, this movie boasts the prerequisite number of moody shots of Cornwall, country houses and the beaches of England. Maybe these films get some kind of tax break the more fields they can squeeze in, the more wisteria they can pan over, the more shots of sheep and peasants mooching in the background.
Landscapes and wildlife are fine but they need to feel part of the narrative. In this handsome telling of the story, though, they feel decorous, rather than a commentary on the storms that are raging within the characters. 
We’re talking about Rachel Weisz’s Rachel, a mature woman returned from Tuscany after the death of her husband. Having received several mysterious letters from the dead man, his older cousin, Sam Claflin’s puppyish Philip suspects that this woman has actually bumped off his relative.
However, as soon as he sees this beautiful widow in her lacy black numbers, Philip is in trouble. In thrall to her charms, he embarks on a spiral of destructive behaviour that involves giving away all his land to this wanton woman. At least, that’s how he perceives her.
No one can quite understand why, including Iain Glen as his guardian, Simon Russell Beale as the family lawyer or Holliday Grainger as Louise, who fancies being Philip’s wife one day herself.
Trouble is, I couldn’t understand it either. The haunting, head- whirling passion just doesn’t come across. Weisz holds back on the seductress front, which leaves us with some mystery (is she a murderer, a poisoner, a femme fatale?), but this never really energises the tired old period fittings of horses and harpsichords, boots and britches. And, I might add, these britches look really itchy. How did anyone ever have sex in hessian?
Du Maurier’s signature psychology – still best captured on film in Alfred Hitchcock’s Rebecca – gets lost in a bid to be both faithful to the book and yet remain decorous to the dullness of British period cinema. You long for some streak of modernity, a take like that of the recent Lady Macbeth, or the acid wit of Whit Stillman’s Love & Friendship, with Kate Beckinsale. Even Carey Mulligan’s update on Far from the Madding Crowd had a bit more feminist bite to it.
Michell, who can serve up hits such as Notting Hill or interesting explorations such as The Mother or even Le Weekend, instead delivers a movie that’s handsome on the surface, but which never gets under the skin to where the real action lies. It’s a safe, simpering film about dangerous obsession, a most frustrating mix.
Although I found the score highly irritating, nothing’s particularly bad here. It looks lush, the furniture’s pretty and Weisz and Claflin are fine (apart from his awful trousers), but there’s so little to get steamed up about. They don’t sizzle with chemistry, nor is there any sense of wider social issues. Weisz’s Rachel, trying to make her own rules financially and sexually, is perhaps a bit racy for her time, but no more than we’d expect any Hardy heroine to be these days.
I can’t fathom British movies any more and something like this is, frankly, just going through the motions: a film that’s familiar but with which you’ve no real desire to spend time. My Cousin Rachel really feels like a distant relative.
We’re talking about Rachel Weisz’s Rachel, a mature woman returned from Tuscany after the death of her husband. Having received several mysterious letters from the dead man, his older cousin, Sam Claflin’s puppyish Philip suspects that this woman has actually bumped off his relative.
However, as soon as he sees this beautiful widow in her lacy black numbers, Philip is in trouble. In thrall to her charms, he embarks on a spiral of destructive behaviour that involves giving away all his land to this wanton woman. At least, that’s how he perceives her.
No one can quite understand why, including Iain Glen as his guardian, Simon Russell Beale as the family lawyer or Holliday Grainger as Louise, who fancies being Philip’s wife one day herself.
Trouble is, I couldn’t understand it either. The haunting, head- whirling passion just doesn’t come across. Weisz holds back on the seductress front, which leaves us with some mystery (is she a murderer, a poisoner, a femme fatale?), but this never really energises the tired old period fittings of horses and harpsichords, boots and britches. And, I might add, these britches look really itchy. How did anyone ever have sex in hessian?
Du Maurier’s signature psychology – still best captured on film in Alfred Hitchcock’s Rebecca – gets lost in a bid to be both faithful to the book and yet remain decorous to the dullness of British period cinema. You long for some streak of modernity, a take like that of the recent Lady Macbeth, or the acid wit of Whit Stillman’s Love & Friendship, with Kate Beckinsale. Even Carey Mulligan’s update on Far from the Madding Crowd had a bit more feminist bite to it.
Michell, who can serve up hits such as Notting Hill or interesting explorations such as The Mother or even Le Weekend, instead delivers a movie that’s handsome on the surface, but which never gets under the skin to where the real action lies. It’s a safe, simpering film about dangerous obsession, a most frustrating mix.
Although I found the score highly irritating, nothing’s particularly bad here. It looks lush, the furniture’s pretty and Weisz and Claflin are fine (apart from his awful trousers), but there’s so little to get steamed up about. They don’t sizzle with chemistry, nor is there any sense of wider social issues. Weisz’s Rachel, trying to make her own rules financially and sexually, is perhaps a bit racy for her time, but no more than we’d expect any Hardy heroine to be these days.
I can’t fathom British movies any more and something like this is, frankly, just going through the motions: a film that’s familiar but with which you’ve no real desire to spend time. My Cousin Rachel really feels like a distant relative.