By using our Services, you agree to our use of cookies. Everyone at Manderley comments on her charms and wit and skill at running the house, no more so than the manor's housekeeper and Rebecca's longtime personal maid, Mrs. Danvers (Kristin Scott Thomas). Presumably, this secret visit was to confirm her pregnancy, and the meeting she tried to arrange with Favell was to tell him about the baby so they could run away together. Who is Maxim really? Once she is living amongst the belongings and memories of her predecessor, the second Mrs. de Winter begins to feel that Maxim is not only still deeply in love with Rebecca, but also harboring regret over his decision to marry again. With Lily James, Armie Hammer, Kristin Scott Thomas, Keeley Hawes. Danvers has agency throughout, attempting to sabotage and undermine Maxim’s new wife at every turn. Maxim cares more about his pride, his name and his property than the life of a woman and child. She and Maxim are in a hotel room in Cairo, a stop along the way on their quest for a new home. 2020, Romance/Drama, 2h 1m. Rebecca isn't the first adaptation of Daphne du Maurier's classic gothic thriller, but if you missed Alfred Hitchcock's celebrated 1940 version (which some viewers find superior), you may have been gobsmacked by the unexpected twists in the film's final act. A happy ending? But a nearby shipwreck changes everything. It also presumably explains her decision to egg on Maxim to kill her. The new Mrs. De Winter is naive, innocent and guileless – or at least at first she is – and after the catastrophic ball is almost goaded into suicide by Danvers. Despite Maxim identifying and burying what everyone believed to be his wife's body a year ago, Rebecca's corpse is still on the boat. The movie ends with Maxim and the second Mrs de Winter carrying on with their lives. During their heated discussion, she put a gun to her chest and goaded Maxim into pulling the trigger. Both of the de Winter's are now far away from the manor and the influence of Rebecca, happy and in love. https://mashable.com/article/netflix-rebecca-ending-book-explained But her final look to camera, followed by the sound of a watery splash suggests something more sinister. Her terminal illness now supplies a motive for Rebecca's supposed suicide, and Maxim is saved. They settle down in Cairo. https://www.popsugar.com/entertainment/rebecca-movie-spoilers-47898788 “To save the one thing worth walking through flames for. We break down the differences between Daphne du Maurier's novel 'Rebecca' and the new Netflix adaptation. Her final acts reveal just how deep her love and admiration for Rebecca was. The second Mrs. De Winter confronts her husband, who admits that he hated Rebecca – that she tormented him and cheated on him repeatedly and that finally, she came to him, telling him that she was pregnant with a child that wasn’t his. Rosie Fletcher is the UK Editor of Den Of Geek. Knowing I could never do that to our name.". In the end, viewers may feel like the new Mrs. de Winter and want to get away from Manderley in any way possible. Maxim tells Mrs. de Winter that the night Rebecca died, she implied that she was pregnant with the child of her cousin and lover, Jack Favell (Sam Riley), but that Maxim couldn't do anything about it because nobody would believe the child wasn't a product of their marriage. ... Aug 21, 2020 Train To … And here she chooses the latter. Well that’s a whole lot more complex. It’s a turning point for Mrs. De Winter 2.0 – shoot Maxim (he hands her the gun and implores her to) or stand by him. Rebecca is a woman who chose her own path. Advertisement. As they crest the … Is Danvers the villain of the piece? Knowing that I wouldn't divorce her. I hated her cruelty, I hated my cowardice. When Mrs. de Winter breaks into the office of the doctor Rebecca saw in London, however, she discovers one more shocking twist to the story. She convinces Max to let her hold the annual costume ball, which Rebecca organized in the past. Ben Wheatley’s new Netflix adaptation of Daphne Du Maurier’s Rebecca has a modern twist. He and Mrs. de Winter return to Manderley, only to find that it has been burned to the ground by Mrs. Danvers, who then throws herself off a cliff into the ocean in despair. This article contains Netflix’s Rebecca spoilers. Is it possible then that Rebecca was not a fallen temptress but a woman fed up with her difficult husband and trapped in a loveless marriage, who decides not to be crushed? As an aside this film takes on a slightly different life in the context of the recently released Netflix documentary American Murder: The Family Next Door which documents the aftermath of the horrible case of Chris Watts who killed his pregnant wife and two daughters, for no other obvious reason than to go off with his new girlfriend. She knows that her husband is a murderer who killed what he thought was a pregnant woman rather than divorce her – and she condoned that. She had terminal uterine cancer, which is what was causing her symptoms. It’s at this point Wheatley’s film deviates from Hitchcock’s. Its ghost, however, is not a supernatural one. Directed by Ben Wheatley. You can’t have it both ways. It’s Danvers who reveals this act in court the next day, including the note and the fact that Rebecca had asked Danvers to take out her clothes because of a swelling wasteline, giving Maxim a clear motive, and undoing the previous defence that Rebecca’s death was suicide. Spoiler alert! We're going to break them all down and explain everything you need to know about the ending of Rebecca. Mrs. Danver's constant reminders that the second Mrs. de Winter will never compare to the first wear on the young woman and she feels alone, unwanted, and unable to escape Rebecca's influence from beyond the grave. Taking on a new adaptation of a classic novel is daunting enough, but factoring in that the story was previously translated to the screen by Alfred Hitchcock, produced by David O. Selznick and starring Laurence Olivier and Joan Fontaine – a film that would win the Oscar for Best Picture – makes it a particularly bold move. This casts an incredible amount of suspicion on Maxim, who now looks all but certain to be charged with Rebecca's murder. Before Danvers plunges into the sea in her final act of defiance she tells the narrator, “I know you’ll stand by him but you’ll never know happiness.”. The Ending Of Netflix's Rebecca Explained. Rebecca, the second Mrs. De Winter learns, was vibrant, radiant and adored by all – she can’t possibly compete and every time she tries to do something nice for Maxim – like reviving the annual ball Rebecca used to hold – something goes wrong, usually orchestrated by Mrs. Danvers. As we point out in our review though, it works, and in part because Wheatley has hewn closer to the book in some respects but also added modern themes and sensibilities – particularly towards the end. Unbeknownst to Mrs. de Winter, Rebecca had once worn the very same dress to the costume ball. In the boat is the body of Rebecca – even though Maxim had previously identified another corpse as her first wife and buried her – and it looks like the boat has been tampered with. Get the best of Den of Geek delivered right to your inbox! This last question is at the heart of the ending of Wheatley’s film. Even with his innocent new wife, he flips his lid when she wears a dress like one Rebecca wore to the ball – his new wife could never have known, and publicly humiliating her isn’t the behaviour of a kind man. In the midst of the inquiry, she defends Rebecca's many affairs and tells Mrs. de Winter, "She lived her life as she pleased, my Rebecca. Maxim's first wife, Rebecca, died in a boating accident a year before the second Mrs. de Winter arrived. When she debuts the look at the party, however, it's met with an uncomfortable silence, followed by an angry outburst from her husband. In this version of Rebecca, Wheatley’s women have agency. “What she’s taken from you, it’s gone forever. Rebecca is part gothic chiller, part mystery, part melodrama (and part courtroom drama in this version) but any sense of romance here is tinged with horror. The second Mrs. De Winter awakes from a nightmare – her dream of Manderley and Danvers. When Maxim couldn’t control her he killed her. Now realizing that her husband doesn't regret their marriage, Mrs. de Winter works with Maxim to try and clear his name and convince the inquest that Rebecca's death was a suicide. That Wheatley’s (and Du Maurier’s) Maxim is a man who would shoot and kill a woman he thinks is pregnant rather than risk his estate and reputation, has a very different nuance. Also read | It Follows Ending Explained: Here's What … Rebecca Ending As the film progresses, the protagonist’s fear and trepidation transform into a disturbing obsession about the manor’s previous lady, mirroring the similar but more intimate emotions of Mrs. Danvers for Rebecca. https://slate.com/culture/2020/10/rebecca-netflix-book-movie-comparison.html Wheatley’s version leans into the ambiguity that was present in Du Marier’s novel – who was Rebecca, really? This is not something Rebecca has done, it is something Maxim has done. It’s a line that has real resonance, particular for a modern audience. Although the story primarily casts Rebecca as a villain, in this moment the viewer is allowed to see an alternate take, wherein she's a woman who was punished for rebelling against the constraints of the time in which she lived. The ending of the movie was very different from what is written in the novel by Daphne du Maurier. https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/rebecca-movie-review-2020 The second Mrs. de Winter is at her lowest point, and it's clear now that Mrs. Danvers is working to psychologically torture her into leaving the house because of the woman's devotion to Rebecca, and that she might be succeeding. No longer overshadowed by Rebecca, her battle with Danvers culminating in a woman’s suicide, she now has the man she loves, as well as the wealth and status that comes with it, but at what cost? After Manderley burns, the film flashes forward in time and we see the couple waking up together in a hotel room in Cairo. https://www.denofgeek.com/movies/rebecca-ending-explained-netflix-thriller Everything changes dramatically, however, when the boat on which Rebecca died is dredged out of the ocean. Is Rebecca? She knew that because of their position in society, Maxim was powerless against her, so she didn't bother hiding the fact that she regularly had affairs and did not actually love him. That funny, young, lost look I love – you’re not that person anymore.”. Sure Danvers is biased, but her version of Rebecca is not necessarily any more skewed than Maxim’s. There is an inquest into Rebecca's death after her body is discovered. When the truth of Rebecca's condition comes to light, Maxim is cleared. Of course Maxim would miss his pliable, innocent young wife, but instead he made her accessory to murder after the fact. Maxim takes the second Mrs. De Winter (we never discover her own name) to his stately mansion, Manderley, where they meet Mrs Danvers (Kristin Scott Thomas) the steely housekeeper who idolised Maxim’s first wife Rebecca. Danvers loves Rebecca, and so does not judge her, instead describing a woman who wouldn’t be shackled by the men around her. Explaining The CRAZY Ending Of REBECCA On Netflix - YouTube ... 2020 at 09:00 AM EDT. And the twists keep on coming. On the advice of her personal maid and Mrs. Danvers, Mrs. de Winter has a dress made in imitation of one worn by the subject of one of the portraits in the main hall, believing it to be a favorite of Maxim's. Things get even worse for the de Winters when Mrs. Danvers testifies that Rebecca was experiencing pregnancy symptoms shortly before she died, and secretly went to see a doctor in London. For her perhaps, but for the viewer? https://www.vox.com/culture/21525431/rebecca-review-netflix Or is it Maxim? The Ending … Mrs. de Winter decides she must confront Maxim about what actually happened to the first Mrs. de Winter, and get to the bottom of Manderley's secrets. Maxim's previous moodiness around the subject of Rebecca was not because he was unable to get over his love for his dead wife, but because he couldn't forget the cruelty she inflicted upon him. Save FB Tweet. Love.”. The 2020 Mrs. Van Hopper, ... Hitchcock's adaptation of Rebecca famously altered the ending in compliance with the moral guidelines of Hollywood's … SPOILER WARNING: The rest of this article contains major spoilers about the ending of Rebecca (which is now streaming on Netflix). She was a conniving and underhanded woman who manipulated those around her into thinking she was someone she was not. Like any grand British estate worth its salt, Manderley is haunted. A young newlywed arrives at her husband's imposing family estate on a windswept English coast and finds herself battling the shadow of his first wife, Rebecca, whose legacy lives … https://screenrant.com/rebecca-alfred-hitchcock-ending-change-hays-code And perhaps she will. That dream is no longer a reality. Looking in the mirror, smoking a cigarette (earlier we see her recoil from Favell’s cigarette smoke), she says she can see the woman she is now and knows she made the right choice. In this movie, however, the de Winters are our protagonists. Rebecca. Maxim says he couldn’t divorce her because of the damage to his reputation, nor could he stand the idea of a child not of his bloodline inheriting his name and estate, so he shot and killed Rebecca then put her in a damaged boat which he sent out to sea. Here is everything one needs to know about Rebecca’s ending What happened to Maxim at the end of Rebecca? Cookies help us deliver our Services. We then circle back to the beginning of the film, and revisit the voiceover that started it all: "Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again.". Mrs. de Winter finds Rebecca's file at the doctor's office and learns that she was not, in fact, pregnant. Rebecca begins with our protagonist's hurried entrance to the grand Monte Carlo hotel she's staying in as part of her job as a paid companion to … “Don’t hate her for that,” the second Mrs. De Winter replies. No wonder a man had to kill her." https://www.looper.com/266229/the-ending-of-netflixs-rebecca-explained You’ll remember that Rebecca is the story of a young woman (Lily James) working as a lady’s companion, who meets handsome and affluent widower Maxim De Winter (Armie Hammer) and quickly becomes his second wife. “She despised you all, you were nothing but play things, why shouldn’t a woman amuse herself?” She barks at Frank Crawley (Tom Goodman-Hill), another of Rebecca’s would-be lovers. He and the heroine drive all night back to Manderley, stopping only once, when Maxim calls home and learns that Mrs. Danvers has disappeared. The character of Rebecca here, created only by the memories of the living, is a mysterious and ambiguous creature too. Who now looks all but certain to be sullen, controlling, proud and aloof – hardly an husband. Her chest and goaded Maxim into pulling the trigger the torment he suffered at her hands, he far... 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