![]() It’s all very pre-Victorian man-cave like, and Philip insists that’s what he likes, but then, oh no, cousin Ambrose falls ill and gets sent to Italy, because that’s what you did when you were sick and lived in England. Ambrose runs some kind of land-based business-he has a lot of workers walking around wielding scythes. He cops to not liking much of anything, besides hanging out with Ambrose in a dusty manse whose interior looks like the gatefold sleeve picture of a mid-70s Jethro Tull album. Orphaned, brought up by an adult cousin named Ambrose, sent to school. His name is Philip, and after wondering who’s to blame, he gives a brief accounting of his life. ![]() ![]() This movie begins with a few noncommittal scenic shots of rural England and a man saying in voiceover, “Did she? Didn’t she? Who’s to blame?” Hearing this, I thought, “Well, that’s no ‘Last night I dreamt I went to Manderlay again.’” Not fair, maybe, but “My Cousin Rachel” is, like Alfred Hitchcock’s “Rebecca,” based on a novel by Daphne du Maurier, master of the moody semi-Gothic romantic thriller.Īs it happens, du Maurier’s novel “My Cousin Rachel” has an entirely different and hookier opening line: “They used to hang men at Four Turnings in the old days.” One feature of this movie, written and directed by Roger Michell, is-I’m assuming here-a new conception of its protagonist, the novel’s unreliable narrator. ![]()
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