IMDb #147: Rebecca (1940)

Source: Wikipedia

The classic mystery novel gets the Hitchcock treatment, and miraculously avoids ticking off everything I despise about mysteries.

Not that it makes the heroine any more tolerable.

A typical boring self-insert female protagonist, she unwittingly snares the attention and affection of a handsome, brooding widower on a cliffside contemplating suicide. Thus she transitions from "professional companion" (of a chatty old hag) to a professional spouse (of George Fortiscue Maximilian de Winter, brusque and imperious iceberg whose hidden depths sink relationships and kill people).

The whirlwind romance deposits the boring girl in Oz. Only it's called Manderly, the Munchkins are the dour serving staff, the unhelpful Wizard is her temperamental husband. Also, the Wicked Witch is the deceased previous wife, whose bitter legacy permeates the house and its inhabitants and even the movie title. This Dorothy has no friends. But there is a fluffy little dog, who drags her to a lakeside cottage containing a crazy old lady and rooms full of secrets.

As the boring girl strives for unattainable standards of beauty and sophistication, she hones her remarkable talent for pissing off her husband. Not that it takes much effort. She's awkward, deferential, and he's temperamental, demeaning. REBECCA stands between them, preventing intimacy as effectively as a full-body condom.

So when the authorities find Rebecca's body, and the hole-riddled boat it sank in, thus begin the token mystery shenanigans. Overnight, the situation waxes toward ridiculousness. Was it suicide? Accident? Murder?

The case re-opens in court. The soap opera begins, reducing the boring heroine to blessed irrelevancy with more complex games afoot. Mind games! Pregnancy! Cancer! The plot threads twist until they fray and unravel. The douchebag car-salesman cousin tries to ruin everything with damning evidence. The reticent landlady discovers her inner pyromaniac.

It's a lovely package. Well-paced, well-delivered, well-unwrapped.

The loose plot threads, just enough string to hang yourself, tie up in to a neat knot. And the shaky marriage between abrasive Lawrence Olivier and his girl-of-the-week achieves questionable vindication.

130 minutes.