My Cousin Rachel (2017)

Genres

Drama, Mystery, Romance

Director

Roger Michell

Countries

USA, UK

Cast

Rachel Weisz, Sam Claflin, Iain Glen, Holliday Grainger, Andrew Knott, Poppy Lee Friar, Katherine Pearce, Tristram Davies, Andrew Havill, Vicki Pepperdine, Bobby Scott Freeman, Harrie Hayes, Pierfrancesco Favino, Louis Suc, Austin Taylor

Storyline

Philip (Sam Claflin), an orphan that was taken in and brought up by his late cousin Ambrose (Deano Bugatti), plots revenge against his cousin's wife, Rachel (Rachel Weisz), believing her responsible for his death. Then he meets Rachel and instead of killing her, he falls in love with her. 

Opinion

I read mixed reviews about My Cousin Rachel, most of them were negative, to be honest, but I still gave it a shot because of Rachel Weisz. I'd watch anything with her. And thank goodness she was in the movie. I doubt I would have made it to the end if it wasn't for her because the movie was quite a disappointment. 

I haven't read Daphne du Maurier's novel but given how much love that book got, I'm pretty sure what went wrong here is the execution. At first, the story was a nice blend of a pretty intriguing and interesting mystery and a complicated love story, then the mystery unlocked way too easily, the pacing became tremendously slow, and I eventually lost interest.

The lack of decent characters I could care about probably had something to do with that. Sam Claflin's Philip not only is naive, but tremendously stupid, doing nonsense after nonsense. Rachel Weisz's Rachel was dull and not so mysterious. I suppose I was supposed to guess what are Rachel's motives, but I just couldn't care less. 

In spite of that, the two actors, Claflin and Weisz, did a pretty good job. The first gave a more human performance and portrayed Philip's feelings pretty well; the latter, on the other hand, gave a cold and detached performance, as required by the role, and blessed the movie with her elegance and wonderful presence.

In addition to the performances, the film benefits from a stunning cinematography, the English countryside - easily the most important and interesting character in the movie - and a beautiful score that fits the film very well.