REBECCA: A Surreal Story Of High Society And Dark Secrets

Someone gave me a copy of Daphne du Maurier's Gothic novel Rebecca many years ago, but I only just got around to reading it last week.  I finished it yesterday and boy, is it ever an intense read!  

The heroine is an unnamed woman in her early twenties who is working as a lady's companion for an overbearing woman when she meets the wealthy widower Maxim de Winter.  They marry after knowing each other only two weeks, but their marriage gets off to a very rough start to say the least.  Even before they get started, the second Mrs. de Winter finds herself in the shadow of Maxim's first wife, Rebecca, who was reported to have died the previous year in a boating accident.  Making things worse is the fact that the housekeeper, Mrs. Danvers, has turned the whole of Manderley into a shrine to Rebecca.  The young bride becomes determined to find out who her late predecessor was and what  secrets were kept from the public. The tension comes to a head at the annual ball and on the beach.

Rebecca can be described as a ghost story without the paranormal.  There may not be anything supernatural going on, but the lingering presence of the dead Rebecca qualifies Manderley as a haunted house.  This adds a level of surrealism to the story, with memories of Rebecca popping out of every nook and cranny.  The morning room and her bedroom have been kept the way she left them.  Mrs. Danvers not shuts up about Rebecca.  People make comments to the bride about how she is not like Rebecca, leading the shy and naive woman to think that she is being judged and can never live up to their expectations.  The very memory of Rebecca interferes with the bride's relationship with Maxim, causing the new Mrs. de Winter thinks her husband does not love her at all.  

I don't really have a quibble with the book, but it's not for the faint of heart.  The climactic scenes at the ball and the beach and are very shocking to say the least, and the suspense can be too much at times, especially if you're a sensitive type.  But I would still say give it a read.  In fact, I would highly recommend Rebecca to anyone who loves romance and suspense. 



   
      
 

THE MEG Can't Tell A Story Worth Beans

This film cannot make up its mind what it wants to be.  Is it a black comedy, is it a thriller, is it a horror movie, what in blazes is it? 

The plot is as follows: Scientists working at a remote research facility off the coast of China discover an unknown region below a gas cloud at a depth below that of the Mariana Trench, and soon get attacked by a mysterious creature Miocene and Pliocene Epochs.  Disgraced diver Jonas Taylor (Statham) comes out of hiding and goes down to rescue the team and finds out that the creature is Megalodon, a giant predatory shark that lived between 23 to 2.6 million years ago and died out before the last Ice Age.  Spoiler Alert, the shark begins attacking and eating people and racks up a fairly sizable body count before it is finally defeated.  

Now I have to give credit where it is due, the shark is shown at closer to its natural size than other films have done in the past (see here for more on that topic).  Even when one appears that's seventy five feet long rather than sixty, it still looks more natural and less like a photo-shopped Great White. The So-Bad-It's-Good movie Shark Attack 3: Megalodon had it so huge that it could swallow a good-sized life raft in one go.  Here, it's just large enough to tangle with a giant squid. 
   The fights with the shark itself are pretty thrilling and awesome--in a stupid kind of way.  The climatic scene, for example, features Taylor chasing the shark through through rocky tunnels before stabbing it in the eye.  That was very well done.  And it was unnerving seeing a diver in a shark cage get stuck in the animal's maw (yeesh!).  The humor is also good at times, with the best moments being references to Shark Week. 
        
However, that's where my praise for this movie ends.  The movie's problems are as follows: The humor may be good, but the shark kills unintentionally fall into this category, being treated as a punchline rather than horrifying.  This is not helped by the fact that the film glosses the deaths over for the most part. 
        Making things worse is the surprising lack of gore.  This may seem strange coming from  someone who doesn't like gratuitous amounts of blood and guts in a movie, but I found that to be a disappointment.   I enjoyed Jaws despite all the blood and guts, but then again there's bound to be blood whenever a shark attacks someone.  Apparently it was originally planned to be an R-rated bloodbath of a movie, but there was some major executive meddling and it got demoted to PG-13.  If they had stuck with the original idea, I think they would have had something truly terrifying.  
       The Meg's biggest problem is the characters.  They are a huge part of the reason the movie seems to be unable to make up its mind about what it is.  With the possible exception of Statham, most of the actors don't seem to know what they're supposed to be doing exactly, and just walk around with wide-eyed expressions of confused nervousness.  But the worst offenders are Jonas ex-wife Lori (Jessica McNamee) and his girlfriend Suyin (Li Binging)  Lori has little to no facial expressions beyond Stone-Faced Zombie and Stepford Wife Smiling even when she takes a screwdriver to midriff; and Suyin goes around looking like she's scared of everything.
       And Neither Lori nor Suyin had any depth at all.  This movie is based off of a novel, and in the novel Jonas' ex-wife is a power-mad woman seeking publicity.  In the film, she's blandly amiable.  There's mention that Jonas and Lori were bad couple, but hwy is never explained.  The writers wasted a perfectly good opportunity for some good drama.  
       I saw this film with my boyfriend and he wanted Suyin to just die, for which I do not blame him.  Suyin is the worst love interest I have ever seen in a story.  There's no chemistry between her or Jonas; their love scenes are little more than shy glances with no real emotion behind them.  She's a terrible mother as well.  She lets her daughter Meiying (Sophie Cai) have free run of the research station, and doesn't seem to discipline her when she should (do you really want your eight-year-old to be saying the word "a-hole"?).  And she's just plain dumb, trying to shark dive with the Megalodon, in a cylindrical cage.  Sorry, but Nigel Marven's design was better. 

Overall rating: 4 1/2 out 10.  Fun action, bad characters.  Goofy humor, sloppy story. 

LA TRAVIATA Production

Yes, this is a few weeks late, but I must say this anyway because I have let this blog just sit forever and three days.  I won't do a usual review, but say whether or not the production works. 

The Met's new production of La Traviata uses the Four Seasons set up to tell the story.  Act 1 takes place in spring, Act 2 in summer, Act 3 in autumn, and Act 4 in winter.  Using musical cues in the prelude, Micheal Meyers decided to start with Violetta's death bed and have the action be a whirl of memories flashing before her very eyes.  

Does this work?  Yes, it does.  It has a slightly surreal quality to it.  There is a moment at the beginning of Act 4 when Alfredo's sister walks across the stage clad as a happy bride.  That little bit of action feels like a flash in Violetta's mind.  And it gives the feeling that this takes place over quite a long period of time.  
       The ballet sequence on Act 3 was the biggest highlight of the production.  The pary Violetta's friend Flora throws has a Spanish theme to it, and the ballet outfits have a Day of the Dead vibe to them.  Granted there needed to be a bit more Torero with the second half of it, but it's still awesome.

So yes, it works.