My Cousin Rachel reviews: A 'triumphant' update of classic Gothic thriller

A new film based on Daphne Du Maurier's classic 1951 novel My Cousin Rachel opens in UK cinemas this week and critics say audiences are in for a gothic treat.

Directed by Roger Michell (The Weekend, Notting Hill), it is the story of Philip, played by Sam Claflin (The Hunger Games), who is tormented by fear and desire for a female relative.

The naive youth believes his sophisticated and alluring cousin Rachel (Rachel Weisz) has murdered his guardian and plots revenge, only to find himself falling under her spell.

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Critics have praised the film for offering a modern twist on this Victorian-set romantic thriller.

Keneth Turan in the Los Angeles Times calls My Cousin Rachel "a triumphant exercise in dark and delicious romantic ambiguity", praising Weisz's "exceptionally persuasive performance", which he says makes this tale feel "remarkably modern" in its exploration of the power dynamics between men and women.

It's a tale that "not only refused to date" but has "extended its relevance", he adds.

Sheri Linden in the Hollywood Reporter agrees, saying "there's a timeless psychological power to du Maurier's story".

She adds: "Questions course beneath the Victorian etiquette like a fever", with viewers asking whether Rachel is "a scheming, murderous fortune hunter or a woman demonised for her modernity". The result is "a beautifully tangled web of good and evil" and a "deliciously dark mystery".

Indeed, says Cath Clarke in Time Out, the real killers in this tale of obsessive love are "the claustrophobically adoring men who want to control Rachel and maintain patriarchal power over women".

We see Rachel through the filter of Philip's possessiveness, adds the critic, and Claflin is excellent at portraying him as an "untrained puppy".

It's a "fresh and un-stuffy period drama", says Clarke, who only wishes it had "a pinch more danger".

Ignatiy Vishnevetsky on AV Club says My Cousin Rachel is a "mordant and fittingly morbid British film with a superbly cast Rachel Weisz".

The critic believes Michell has added "small but suggestive twists" that add to the moral ambiguities of the characters. Even when the film loses its grasp on some of the more troubling undercurrents, it still offers the "pleasures inherent to all Gothic narratives" from rocky, windswept landscapes to candelabras carried up creaky staircases.

My Cousin Rachel opens in UK cinemas on Friday 9 June.