Country: GB/US
Technical: col/2.39:1 106m
Director: Roger Michell
Cast: Rachel Weisz, Sam Claflin, Iain Glen, Holliday Grainger, Pierfrancesco Favino
Synopsis:
A sheltered life on a Cornish estate does little to equip the ward of the late owner against the wiles of the female who replaced the boy in his affections. When she arrives from Italy on a visit, he veers from loathing to infatuation, but is he simply the product of congenital paranoia?
Review:
This second film version, after Fox's precipitate 1952 adaptation by Nunnally Johnson, ticks off the familiar Hardy-esque tropes (ravishing mise en scène, changeable weather, letters and love tokens) and adds in some du Maurier gothic by way of Henry James. The problem is that, film being such a 'show me' medium, we lose a lot of the ambiguity of the Rachel character as seen through the eyes of the boyish, too impetuous hero; so that by the time we get to the wrenching scene on the cliffs and the decorous epilogue by caleche, what's left of his ravaged psyche has no chance against the ravishing visuals.
Country: GB/US
Technical: col/2.39:1 106m
Director: Roger Michell
Cast: Rachel Weisz, Sam Claflin, Iain Glen, Holliday Grainger, Pierfrancesco Favino
Synopsis:
A sheltered life on a Cornish estate does little to equip the ward of the late owner against the wiles of the female who replaced the boy in his affections. When she arrives from Italy on a visit, he veers from loathing to infatuation, but is he simply the product of congenital paranoia?
Review:
This second film version, after Fox's precipitate 1952 adaptation by Nunnally Johnson, ticks off the familiar Hardy-esque tropes (ravishing mise en scène, changeable weather, letters and love tokens) and adds in some du Maurier gothic by way of Henry James. The problem is that, film being such a 'show me' medium, we lose a lot of the ambiguity of the Rachel character as seen through the eyes of the boyish, too impetuous hero; so that by the time we get to the wrenching scene on the cliffs and the decorous epilogue by caleche, what's left of his ravaged psyche has no chance against the ravishing visuals.
