In the novel, Maxim admits to the narrator that he killed Rebecca during an argument and put her body in a boat and scuttled it. However, by the standards of code, admitting to murder would make Maxim a villain and he would need to be punished.

On the surface, Maxim, or Max, is a calm, dapper man—the very image of the English gentleman. As a result, he doesn’t divulge the truth about Rebecca, his first wife, to the narrator until towards the end of the novel—as far as she’s concerned, Maxim loved Rebecca, and continues to love her even after her death.

Generally speaking, Maxim does show the narrator affection, while also getting annoyed with her at times (as with Jasper), but she resents the fact that he doesn’t seem to treat her as an equal, or indeed, as an intellectually-functioning human being at all.

The evidence of holes punched in the bottom of the boat from the inside makes it clear that Rebecca’s death was no accident, and Maxim is arrested after Jack Favell reveals a note from Rebecca, inviting Favell to Manderley so she could tell him some important news, which suggests that she wasn’t planning to kill …

However, one of Rebecca’s lovers, her cousin Jack Favell, tells the magistrate that Maxim murdered Rebecca, and Mrs. Danvers seemingly confirms that the two were having an affair.

Shortly after her confession, she dies by suicide when she throws herself into the same sea Rebecca drowned in. In the book, Danvers is presumed alive after the fire. The Unnamed Narrator wonders “what [Danvers] is doing now” in the book’s opening chapters.

Mrs Danvers sets fire to Manderley at the end of the film as an act of revenge for the death of Rebecca. We see her plummet into the sea to join Rebecca, a final act of love. While this is an unhappy ending for Mrs Danvers and Rebecca – who has been murdered – it’s a happy ending for Maxim and his wife.

But instead, it turns out that Rebecca was dying of cancer, and that furthermore she was infertile; she had lied to Maxim about her pregnancy. Her terminal illness now supplies a motive for Rebecca’s supposed suicide, and Maxim is saved.

Once the police find out, Mrs de Winter frames it that because of her diagnosis, Rebecca decided to drown herself by damaging her own boat. It works and Maxim is freed with Rebecca’s death ruled a suicide.

Maxim

“The sky above our heads was inky black. But the sky on the horizon was not dark at all. The implication in the novel is that Manderley was set on fire by housekeeper Mrs Danvers, who was furious that her attempts to break up the marriage between Maxim and the new Mrs De Winter were futile.

By Daphne du Maurier In some ways, Rebecca ends very differently than most murder stories. Usually, the murderer is either killed or caught, most often by some agent of justice. Mrs. de Winter even sees the blaze as a metaphor for Rebecca’s spilled blood: the fire is the spilled blood of Manderley.

She runs out of the house, and the protagonist follows her. Before she jumps to her death, Mrs Danvers says that no one else can have the house but Rebecca. She jumps into the sea. She killed herself to reunite with Rebecca, as she had been fond of her since she was a child.

There aren’t any ghosts, but the schadenfreude will chill you to the bone. I went to Manderley again, only it wasn’t a dream. Netflix has resurrected the haunted house of Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca from the ashes just in time for Halloween.

While you can technically consider Rebecca a ghost story, the ghosts aren’t supernatural — they’re simply figments of our nameless heroine’s fragile imagination, egged on by the vicious taunts of the vengeful Mrs. Danvers. That’s not to say Rebecca isn’t suspenseful or creepy — it’s absolutely both.

No one ever claimed Rebecca was evil, but simply that she was uncaring. She didn’t care about anyone but herself. This is amptly backed up by Mrs. Danvers who was even with her as a child.

No, what is most shocking in Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca, is the ease of complicity in Rebecca’s death. When Maxim confesses he killed Rebecca, his unnamed wife is glad! She doesn’t recoil with horror that her husband killed his first wife. Rebecca’s murder secures her insecurities.

Jump Scare Times 00:12:08 – During a suspenseful scene, Rebecca is hit by a teddy-bear. 00:13:22 – The knife slips, cutting Rebecca’s finger. 00:26:22 – Rebecca turns around and is startled to see Todd standing right behind her. 00:32:33 – A screaming face briefly appears on Todd’s laptop.

Armie Hammer and Lily James in Rebecca, premiering October 21 on Netflix. It’s a horror film without any of monsters or gore on which modern thrillers rely; the scariest parts of Rebecca are in fact often what the audience can’t see.

Maxim de Winter’s first wife Rebecca, who died before the events of the film, is never seen. Her reputation and recollections of her, however, are a constant presence in the lives of Maxim, his new wife and the housekeeper Mrs. Danvers.

Is Rebecca based on a true story? The novel isn’t a true story, but many have claimed that the portrayals of womanhood in the story reflect many parts of the author’s upbringing and inner life.

The Netflix Rebecca was filmed at Hatfield House, Ham House in Richmond-upon-Thames, at Monaco’s Exotic Garden, and in Nice and North Devon. The Daphne du Maurier adaptation wasn’t filmed in Cornwall. Though there ae stylistic similarities between the novel’s settings and the filming locations we see in the movie.

Is Rebecca a true story? Rebecca is not based on true events, but the dark and obsessive nature of its narrator is based in reality. Du Maurier’s inspiration for her novel Rebecca was actually from her own personal experience. Du Maurier became convinced that her husband still loved Jan and became obsessively jealous.

According to IMDb, Daphne du Maurier’s hit 1938 novel Rebecca has been adapted for the screen fifteen times, including the latest version for Netflix (never mind the number of stage and radio productions).

Jack Favell

suicide

Danvers is the villain of Daphnée Du Maurier’s novel Rebecca, made internationally famous for its movie adaptation by Sir Alfred Hitchcock. An icy, stern and imposing figure never ever seen smiling, Mrs.

Assuming Netflix greenlights a sequel to Rebecca, it’s probably safe to say that it may be a while for the Rebecca 2 release date. It’s hard to guess, but if the sequel does happen, it’s safe to assume that production would start sometime in 2021, and it would release sometime in 2022 at the earliest.

Manderley is a fictional estate in Daphne du Maurier’s 1938 novel Rebecca, owned by the character Maxim de Winter. Du Maurier’s childhood visits to Milton Hall, Cambridgeshire, home of the Fitzwilliam family, influenced the descriptions of Manderley, especially the interior.