Review of My Cousin Rachel (2017) by Jake K — 13 Jun 2017

It's a period piece and one with a somewhat bizarre (in a good way) plot, but it felt real. The characters felt real. Beautiful scenery, costumes, music - none of this would have mattered had it not been for Rachel Weisz and Sam Claflin's performances that made the movie work for me.

Sam Claflin brought Philip to life with such genuine emotions, I felt that everything the man did - good, bad, stupid - was understandable and even, with the obvious exception of physical violence towards Rachel, justifiable. He starts out as a nice guy. Simple, possibly not very bright, but nice. He is good to the workers and doesn't mind doing physical work himself even though he probably doesn't have to. And he is nice to Louise. He just doesn't know what to do with her, literally, or any other women. He appears to be basically asexual. When in Italy he gets violent with Rinaldi, it's totally understandable - he came to rescue his loved one from being murdered and here is this stranger telling him, almost smugly, that his loved one is "you know, dead" and the suspected killer is gone. When he lashes out at the servant demanding to know whether Rachel is such and such monster, it is obvious that he is just freaking out about meeting her. His initial attraction to her is not sexual, not consciously anyway. Until she makes it so by seducing him, repeatedly. A crush becomes a crush on steroids, or on the newly discovered testosterone to be exact. Is it any wonder that his head went spinning? Some of the things he does are actually not crazy at all, but very romantic. Scaling the wall to get to her bedroom when he could have gone through the door, wanting to make love on the bed of flowers. Awww! How was he supposed to know that when a woman kisses him or even has sex with him, it might actually not mean anything? You could say that when it comes to his suspicious he sees and hears what he wants to see and hear, but there is really nothing else to see or hear from Rachel. Which finally brings me to Rachel Weisz' performance. The magic of it is that her namesake doesn't just fool Philip, she fools us at the exact same time! For every suspicion, for every gotcha her response comes across as so genuine, you can't help but buy it. And sympathise with her. There is a scene towards the end where Philip, broken and resigned, hears Rachel say "How can I live with a boy? No matter how lovely." Those last words make him perk up, but only for a moment. It's over. But then she starts crying, talking about how she can't do it again, the "hands on throats" and all. And part of me wanted to scream, "Liar! Multiple men attack you after drinking your tea, gee what a coincidence!" Yet part of me wanted to cry with her. And Philip, in spite of himself, comes crawling, almost literally, a "glorious puppy". And my heart ached for both of them.