Ben Wheatley’s new version of the gothic thriller Rebecca joins an impressive list of big-screen Du Maurier adaptations
Valerie Hobson plays the wife of a
British MP (Michael Redgrave), who learns her husband has been killed in the second world war. Just as she is getting to grips with her loss, preparing to marry a neighbouring farmer and taking up her late husband’s seat in parliament (where Churchill is impressed by her maiden speech), he turns up alive. Apparently, reports of his death were greatly exaggerated because he was secretly working for the Resistance. Now, he expects her to return to her housewifely duties, but everything has changed. This earnest adaptation of Daphne du Maurier’s play has not aged well.