Review of My Cousin Rachel (2017) by Joel A — 20 Jun 2017

An ambitious try at combining lessons about social prejudice with a basic mystery thriller. This invites the audience often to think the worst of continental Rachel, but nothing is clear, and jumping to conclusions gets you nowhere - is Rachel just culturally different, or actually bad, and who decides what bad is? Is she a victim of the assumptions of the English side of the family, hopelessly romantic on the one hand, and intent on protecting the wealthy estate on the other, or is she a grasping manipulatrix? There was plenty of "I told you so" tutting by the audience when Rachel serves the dubious, foreign tea.

The ending more or less tells you the answer, albeit with loose ends. The mixed-race character of Rachel is always in-between - she lacks both the instant, deep fire of her Latin side, nor is she coldly adding up the ciphers; she needed to illustrate the contradiction, but she is soft and unclear; plus she is dressed in quasi-religious style, black Italian mourning, but isn't particularly sad, nor is she irreverent.

Weisz is generous and does what she can with a screenplay and direction that need to be more incisive. Her warm and mellow persona was perhaps not the ideal casting - this was a role more in the Kristen Stewart line.

Overall though the performances are good, with interesting male support roles; this is a high quality production with fine sets, costumes, and locations in England and Tuscany. Daphne du Maurier drew her female characters with unfailing accuracy - her specialty was teaching you not to judge people too quickly, exemplified in the classic 'Rebecca'.

This follows that idea - it just lacks Ms Du Maurier's sureness of aim.