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We’re well into spooky season, which makes the Lily James/Armie Hammer reboot of Daphne du Maurier’s 1938 Gothic novel Rebecca terrifyingly well-timed. The movie, which features a newly married young woman locked in eerie competition with her new husband’s dead first wife, dropped on Netflix on October 21, and—as I so often do—I had thoughts. Let’s exhaustively chronicle them, shall we?
We open with a shot of what appears to be a dark and treacherous sea. We love to...sea it, if you will. Ultimately, it turns out to be a woman’s softly moving locks of hair, which is actually scarier, so hats off, Netflix.
Flashback! Lily James is in Monte Carlo, a place I refuse to believe actually exists. She’s flitting about in a smart little suit, getting condescended to by Mrs. Van Hopper (Ann freaking Dowd!), who clues her in to the identity of a mysterious Mr. De Winter. (Spoiler: he’s Armie Hammer, and he’s hot.)
When we first meet Mr. De Winter, he’s in a mustard yellow suit that I covet and, quite frankly, think would look good on me. He’s not a fan of Mrs. Van Hopper, but he clearly thinks Lily James is cute, even though she’s a capital-O outsider.
Through Rebecca’s eavesdropping, we learn Mr. De Winter had a wife, Rebecca (!), whom he adored and who is no longer with us.
Lily James’s role in Mrs. Van Hopper’s life is apparently as a “ladies’ companion,” a job I feel I would be uniquely suited for. She bonds with Mr. De Winter while smoking a cigarette, and we learn her parents are dead and she’s alone in the world.
Did Lily James just order a dozen oysters for...breakfast? I will be thinking about this for the rest of my life.
Lily James impresses Mr. De Winter on a coastal drive by knowing a lot about cars, which men famously love, and having a quirky girl’s wealth of factoids about plants. Move to Bushwick, Lily James! (By the way, I’m calling her Lily James because we never learn her character’s name, not merely because I’m disrespectful.)
Mr. De Winter refuses to talk about his dead wife, but, like, in a hot way. Still a red flag, though!
Unrelated to anything: I wish my hair would settle itself into a charming little bob like Lily James’s does in this movie, instead of being alternately flat and inexplicably pointy.
Mr. De Winter keeps asking Lily James out, but I guess his “thing” is that he looks unspeakably pissed all the time. Maybe that’s just how men used to look in the olden days?
All these shots of Monaco beaches are making me extremely vacation-hungry.
Beach sex! Woooooo!
It turns out Mrs. Van Hopper knows about Lily James’s petite affaire with Mr. De Winter, and she’s extremely mean about it and wants to take Lily James away to New York.
Not so fast, though: Mr. De Winter (in a tank top!) proposes (again, tank top!) and invites her to his home, Manderley (again, I can’t emphasize enough how much he’s in a tank top!). He calls Lily James a “little fool,” but, again, it’s kind of hot.
Manderley is extremely fancy, and all of Mr. De Winter’s servants line up on the lawn to receive the happy couple. Lily James is wearing a cute beret in this scene, and it is incumbent upon me to point out that she is copying me.
We meet Mrs. Danvers (Kristin Scott Thomas), the head housekeeper at Manderley, who is immediately terrifying. So is the house, for that matter; real Haunting of Hill House energy.
All anyone can talk about is the late Rebecca de Winter! By design, it seems. Lily James is creeped out by it, clearly.
God, Armie Hammer is simply the largest man.
Apparently, Mr. De Winter is a sleepwalker, which seems like the kind of thing you would ideally mention before the wedding, but I guess it all happened very quickly. Anyway, we’re treated to long scenes of him prowling the darkened house in—once more, blessedly—a tank top.
The late Mrs. De Winter, we learn, was “particular about her sauces.” I can only hope to someday be described this way by my widower’s mean housekeeper.
There is still hair—HAIR!—in one of Mrs. De Winter’s brushes, so clearly she hasn’t been gone that long. Also, ew.
For a guy who’s obsessed with his dead wife, Mr. De Winter is a reasonably attentive husband!
More beach content, but now it’s desolate and terrifying. Jasper (cute dog) leads Lily James to a scary little beach shack, which (a) contains a weird guy who implies Mrs. De Winter drowned, and (b) would rent for a fortune on Airbnb.
Mr. De Winter’s aged grandmother freaks out during a gathering, asking for “Rebecca.” She lives rent-free in everyone’s heads! From Mr. De Winter’s mean sister (incidentally, an amazing movie for mean women onscreen), we learn Rebecca was “irresistible to everyone.”
Rebecca tells on herself for breaking an extremely valuable figurine of Rebecca’s, and everyone! Is! Mad!
Rule of thumb: If everyone keeps encouragingly telling you that you are “so good for” your current partner, that is a sign that your needs are maybe not being prioritized in the relationship!
Okay, yes, Rebecca fully drowned. Also, her room is immaculately preserved by Mrs. Danvers, who is on some real Norman Bates shit.
Damn, Rebecca had horses before she died? I like this bitch’s life.
We meet a flashy, jerky-seeming guy named Jack, who comes to call and goes for a ride with Lily James. He admits Rebecca wanted to tell him something before she died, and not knowing what still haunts him. (I think they totally kissed, but I never read the book so...we’ll see.)
From Jack, we learn Mr. De Winter has a “famous temper.” Ominous!
Yep, there’s the temper! Mr. De Winter freaks out at Lily James for spending time with Jack in his absence.
Rebecca tries to fire Mrs. Danvers, who we learn was Rebecca’s childhood governess and has nowhere else to go. Needless to say, Rebecca does not end up firing her, which I am fairly confident will prove to be a mistake.
Big fancy party time! Lily James is all excited about her sweeping red gown and dark wig, which infuriates Mr. De Winter, because it’s an inadvertent Rebecca costume, and he is, uh...still grieving, to put it mildly. He makes her go and change, and his terrible attitude is officially no longer hot. We learn Mrs. Danvers secretly set Lily James up, knowing the dress would upset everyone.
Okay, things are getting spooky! Mrs. Danvers was plotting against Lily James the whole time, and tries to get her to commit suicide by jumping out of a window.
Even spookier! Rebecca’s body is dredged up from the water...or is it? Mr. De Winter shot her in a rage after learning she was pregnant with another man’s child, but she slept around, so it’s apparently okay?
Lily James mostly just seems psyched that Rebecca wasn’t the hot, nice genius everyone made her out to be, which...priorities? But also, I kind of get it. Comparison is the thief of joy.
In a Gone Girl–esque twist, it turns out Rebecca was actually terminally ill, never pregnant, and manipulated Mr. De Winter into killing her quickly, rather than succumbing to a lingering death. (Note to self: rewatch Gone Girl.)
In a truly gorgeous scene, Manderley burns and Lily James wisely hauls ass out of there. Aaaaand, scene! Overall, this movie was...long.
