One thing we all should have learned from the movies is never to go with a mysterious widower to a second location, and yet, in the year 2020, dewy ingénues continue to make this mistake! In this case, the ingénue in question is Lily James, starring in Netflix’s new adaptation of Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca as the second Mrs. de Winter. Armie Hammer, seen in a very arm-forward press still, plays her husband, Maxim de Winter, while Kristin Scott Thomas looms in the background of another still as the stern and intimidating maid Mrs. Danvers. Kristin Scott Thomas being stern? What a reach!
Ben Wheatley is directing this version of Rebecca, which debuts on Netflix on October 21. He’ll have to do his best to live up to Alfred Hitchcock’s 1940 film, which won Best Picture and starred Laurence Olivier, Joan Fontaine, and Judith Anderson. Speaking of Fontaine, it is really too bad that her sister, Olivia de Havilland, has passed, because she’d probably have something good to say, or sue, about all this.
