"Rebecca" (2020) and the Enduring Queer Appeal of Mrs. Danvers
Though the movie itself is unremarkable, Kristin Scott Thomas finds new, biting depths to the Daphne du Maurier's conic queer villain.
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Welcome to “Sinful Sundays,” where I explore and analyze some of the most notorious queer villains of film and TV (and sometimes literature, depending on my mood). These are the characters that entrance and entertain and revolt us, sometimes all three at the same time. As these queer villains show, very often it’s sweetly good to be bitterly bad.
I went into the 2020 version of Rebecca with expectations that were, I think, quite low. The film was always bound to be compared to Hitchcock’s adaptation of the novel by Daphne du Maurier and found wanting. Therefore, I wasn’t particularly surprised by my response to the film–I was, quite frankly, bored for most of it–but I was still disappointed that it brought almost nothing new to the table. After all, it’s not as if Hitchcock has some sort of monopoly on the original source material, and a more inspired adaptation could have found new depths to explore. Instead, it all feels rather perfunctory, and there’s almost no chemistry between Lily James’ unnamed protagonist and Armie Hammer’s Maxim de Winter (this is more his fault than hers, because while Hammer might be beautiful, he’s just not all that compelling a screen presence).
If there is one redeeming thing about this version of the story, it’s the presence of Kristin Scott Thomas, who plays the menacing and sinister Mrs. Danvers. From the moment that we meet her, there’s something almost shark-like about the way she moves through Manderley, and that feeling only intensifies once she decides that she must do everything in her power to get rid of the second Mrs. de Winter, whom she views as an inferior interloper. As Peter Bradshaw of The Guardian so aptly puts it: “Thomas has a way of pursing her lips that would turn fresh milk into uranium and she gives every line a gimlet jab of contempt.” It’s clear that she, at least, has done her homework when it comes to the character she’s meant to play. The screen fairly crackles with intensity whenever she appears, whether it’s passing silent but palpable judgment on her mistress or simply gazing at her from some shadowy alcove. If there’s anyone in the film who holds true to the gothic horror of the original story, it’s Thomas.
For me, the highlight of the film is when Mrs. Danvers, realizing that she’ll never be rid of this interloper unless she resorts to desperate measures, executes a masterpiece of subterfuge and misdirection, making it seem as if she is on her side while manipulating her into embarrassing herself and alienating Maxim at the infamous masquerade ball. While I love many of the aspects of Judith Anderson’s performance in Hitchcock’s version, we in the audience can never quite be taken in by her. She’s simply too sinister, too distant, too knowing, to ever fully be able to convince us that she’s really taken With Thomas, however, we actually do believe her, at least for a while. Maybe it’s just me and my own credulous way of engaging with cinematic fictions, but I was able to suspend my disbelief and hope that maybe, just maybe, she really had decided that it was okay to go along to get along, particularly since she managed to share a remarkably warm and open conversation with her new mistress.
And then it all comes crashing down once the unfortunate second Mrs. de Winter realizes that she’s been deceived all along. It’s now, when her victim is at her most alone and vulnerable, that Mrs. Danvers chooses to strike, and it’s a powerful moment–arguably the best in the entire film–bristling with menace and even a bit of desire. Mrs. Danvers looms over the second Mrs. de Winter like a lesbian angel of death, and the moment when she leans in and whispers in her ear that it might be better, after all, if she were just to throw herself to her death on the unforgiving ground below. The gleam of her red lips, the discomfiting closeness between the two women as one of them hovers on the brink of suicide, the frenzied climax…it’s all well-executed and Thomas acts the hell out of it. One can’t help but wish that the rest of the film were nearly this interesting.
But, I can hear you asking, what about the sapphic overtones from the original film? I mean, we are all familiar with Dame Judith Anderson’s masterful interpretation of the character as a woman who was clearly smitten with her former mistress and desperate to keep her spirit alive in any way she can, up to and including keeping her room as a shrine, undergarments and all. Worry not, they’re still in this version, though less explicit, strangely enough, even though this film was made in an industry no longer laboring under the restrictions of the Hays Code.
There is, however, a remarkable subtlety to Thomas’ performance that makes the queer feelings no less palpable. Much of this stems from the way Thomas makes extensive use of her face. As one reviewer sums it up, there’s always “the slight arch of an eyebrow, a subtle but pointed look, a small twitch of her top lip to convey the character's complex desires and insecurities, ultimately revealing the Queer sub-text tucked in between the lines by Du Maurier.” There’s something almost endearing about the way she speaks of her relationship, particularly her repeated references to Rebecca’s nickname for her, “Danny,” which somehow manages to be both dismissive and endearing at the same time. And as Scott herself has said, “There may even be some kind of passion there that is not unrequited and probably encouraged by Rebecca.”
And then there’s her grand finale. Having been thwarted in her efforts to destroy Maxim–and no doubt haunted by the fact that Rebecca didn’t share her cancer diagnosis–Mrs. Danvers decides that the only thing to do is to set fire to Manderley and, after a final confrontation with the new mistress of the house, throw herself into the sea, meeting the same watery grave as her beloved. There’s something almost touching about the fact that Mrs. Danvers, for all of her coldness and her cruelty, simply can’t bring herself to live in a world without Rebecca, and she remains an icon of thwarted and tragic queer desire.
Will Thomas’s interpretation of Mrs. Danvers ever eclipse that delivered by Anderson? The answer to that is obviously no, but perhaps this is the wrong way to think about it. In the right hands–whether those of Thomas or Diana Rigg or Judith Anderson–continues to call to us, her voice the siren call of sapphic desire.