I love gothic.... I love dark.... I love flawed characters and moral gray area. This movie has a great setup. Philip played by Sam Claflin believes that his cousin Rachel played Rachel Weisz by is responsible for his beloved cousin's Ambrose's death (the man who raised Philip). He is full of anger. He is going to hold this awful, reprehensible person responsible! Except he meets her... and promptly falls in love. Oh, the conflict. Oh, the complications. Oh, the anguish. Right? Well, kind of. In the scene where Philip meets Rachel, it's never clear why he abandons his original plans. Yes, she's pretty but he doesn't seem completely taken with her in that first scene. But I guess we are to believe that is the moment he falls in love with her? So the entire movie's setup feels hard to believe.
The movie then plods along under this emotional theme for a while, taking all the way to the later part of the film to get into more of the mind-twisting conflict that I was expecting earlier in the film. A lot of potential here bu the middle of the film fell short.
The movie then plods along under this emotional theme for a while, taking all the way to the later part of the film to get into more of the mind-twisting conflict that I was expecting earlier in the film. A lot of potential here bu the middle of the film fell short.