Film: Rebecca

This is an old Alfred Hitchcock directed film that the IFI were showing in a season of films whose linking feature now escapes me. In the film, a comedically sappy bird marries this slightly creepy rich guy (played by Laurence Olivier), and move to Manderlay, his ancestral pile. There she is weirded out by comparisons with Rebecca, the rich guy’s late first wife.

One thing that really has to be said about this film is that Olivier is brilliant in it. I have seen him ham it up in so many Shakespeare adaptations that I had written him off as the most over-rated actor of all time, but he communicates an agreeably ambiguous edginess to the role here that has me re-evaluating him completely. Beyond that, the pacing of the film is a bit weird – it seems like too much happens before they get to Manderlay, and too much happens after we learn the truth about Rebecca. Yet it all is so gamely presented that I let the film pull me where it would.