Review of My Cousin Rachel (2017) by Wayne K — 11 Sep 2017

Touted as a mystery but containing nothing much to wonder or dissect, My Cousin Rachel limps through a series of mostly uninteresting events before reaching not a climax, but a sudden stop. You'd expect an alleged mystery to end with a big whammy ending, the rug being pulled out from under us, and unexpected twist leaving us in chock and awe.

But no such revelation comes, and I had no idea what I was actually supposed to be concerned about. In fact I initially suspected that an entire scene, or several, might be missing. Rachel Weisz turns in a good performance, but she's stuck acting opposite one of the most annoying main characters in recent memory.

A man who spends most of his time watching people ride away on horseback, he mopes, whines, pulls the same mildly befuddled expression over and over again and changes his motivation on a dime without rhyme or reason.

A talented cast manage to be upstaged by everything in the background, with cliffs, trees and farmland being the most appealing things in it. As the film progressed I began to suspect I was wasting my time watching it, but when the slap-in-the-face ending happens, I was left in no doubt.