My Cousin Rachel ***½ (2017, Rachel Weisz, Sam Claflin, Iain Glen, Holliday Grainger) – Movie Review

Writer-director Roger Michell’s remake of Daphne Du Maurier’s novel, first filmed with Richard Burton and Olivia de Havilland in 1952, also as My Cousin Rachel, is a thoroughly enjoyable dark romance, successfully bringing out the enduring appeal of the story.

The movie is sumptuous, rich and romantic and mysterious. Michell captures its flavour just right. Sam Claflin and Rachel Weisz are both excellent as young Englishman Philip and his mysterious, beautiful older cousin Rachel Ashley, whom he believes has murdered his guardian. Alas, though, it is easy for Philip to fall under Rachel’s bewitching charms, so the revenge in the story might be hers, not his. With Iain Glen as Nick Kendall and Holliday Grainger as Louise Kendall, all of the cast are good actually.

The slightly rushed and muddled ending is the only downside, as the film goes out with a whimper rather than a bang, but, as this is the same in the 1952 film, it must be a product of Du Maurier’s story. Still, a less confusing, more impactful conclusion would be good. Nevertheless, this is a compelling and engrossing old-style romantic mystery drama, with Claflin and Weisz giving beguiling performances, he tormented, she the tormentor.

Du Maurier is the author behind Hitchcock’s Jamaica Inn, The Birds and Rebecca (with Joan Fontaine), as well as Frenchman’s Creek (another Fontaine classic) and The Scapegoat (1959).

© Derek Winnert 2017 Movie Review

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