My Cousin Rachel

Someone should make an infographic, or some kind of sprawling visual chart, which details all the times that the actor Rachel Weisz has been better than the movie in which she’s starring. It seems par for the course so say of her work, “she was fantastic – didn’t think much of the film, though.”

And so it goes with Roger Michell’s My Cousin Rachel, a respectable (and nothing more) adaptation of Daphne du Maurier’s quaint noir novel from 1951 about a lovestruck country squire who choses to cede his fortune to a mysterious, bewitching relative. There are light feminist undertones to this twisting tale, but Michell is certain to let the audience know whose side they should be on.

He tries so hard to tease out the ambiguities from the material that you can almost see him stroking chin and twirling is moustache in satisfaction. Characters lope through cluttered mansions, doled out in impenetrable corsets and decorative waistcoats. Sam Claflin holds his own as the wide-eyed cuckold Phillip, who is so instantly smitten by his cousin Rachel (Weisz), he is willing to entirely overlook the fact that she may have played a part in the unexplained death of his beloved guardian and benefactor, Ambrose.

Coiled passions eventually come to a head as schemes are uncovered and outside interests revealed. Everyone involved puts in a solid turn, especially Holliday Grainger, retaining a pained, rictus smile as Phillip’s spurned sweetheart. But the reality is, Weisz acts everyone else off the screen. She can do more with a pause and a harried glance than most actors can do with a five pages of meaty monologue.

She’s maybe not the most naturalistic of actors, but her meticulous, classical method is often a wonder to behold. As this wannabe ripe melodrama peters into its staid final stretches, you’re left to ponder what mediocre film Weisz will light up next.