Rebecca ending explained by director Ben Wheatley (2024)

Rebecca ending spoilers follow.

Netflix's Rebecca is the latest adaptation to tackle Daphne du Maurier's classic Gothic novel about a newlywed haunted by the presence of her husband's former wife.

Anyone already familiar with the tale might not expect many surprises in Ben Wheatley's version, adapted for the screen by Jane Goldman, but while it is a faithful take, there are tweaks here and there to the original text.

So we decided to sit down with Wheatley to talk through the big revelations in Rebecca and the moments where they diverged from the novel, as well as previous adaptations such as Alfred Hitchco*ck's Oscar-winning 1940 movie.

Major spoilers are ahead if you haven't seen Rebecca on Netflix yet.

As in the novel, the pivotal event of the movie comes when Mrs de Winter (Lily James) decides to hold a costume ball like they used to at Manderley.

She thinks she's won over imposing housekeeper Mrs Danvers (Kristin Scott Thomas), and that the ball is the perfect opportunity to reignite the spark in her marriage to Maxim de Winter (Armie Hammer).

Unfortunately for Mrs de Winter, she is very wrong.

Mrs Danvers manipulates her into wearing the same dress that Maxim's late wife Rebecca did in her final ball, leading to an angry reaction from Maxim. Mrs de Winter's mental state deteriorates to the extent that Mrs Danvers almost convinces her to kill herself.

However, at the moment Mrs de Winter is about to jump, a trawler washes up on the shore with Rebecca's body on board, despite the fact that Maxim previously identified a body as his wife months earlier.

Following the discovery, Maxim reveals to Mrs de Winter what really happened to Rebecca.

She was already dead when the boat sank and it was Maxim who damaged it deliberately. What's more, he was the one who killed her by shooting her after she goaded him that she was carrying the baby of her cousin Jack Favell (Sam Riley).

"When she came back from London, she told me she was expecting a visit from Favell. When I got her, she was alone. She looked different, she was pale. She'd seen a doctor in London," Maxim tells his wife.

"She said, 'Imagine if I had a child, Max, you could never prove it wasn't yours'. See, it wasn't enough for her to take my pride. She wanted to take my name, my home, everything. And she said, 'Go on Max, do it. All you have to do is pull the trigger and you'll be free'."

In the Hitchco*ck version, Rebecca's death was changed to be accidental as it was thought Maxim shouldn't get away with the crime if he had killed her. It was important to Wheatley that his version brought back what really happened in the du Maurier's book.

"It's not a remake of the Hitchco*ck film. So it was very important. Because that's the moral centre of the movie. Without that, the film means a lot less. If she just tripped over a rope and died, it's a bit bizarre," he told Digital Spy.

Wheatley isn't even sure that Maxim is telling the truth about what happened to Rebecca and could just be manipulating his new wife into helping him.

"Do you even believe what de Winter is saying about what happened in the boathouse? I don't. 'She begged me to shoot her...', yeah right. You're the only person left alive that knows what happened in that room," he continued.

"For all we know, he just jumped out from behind the sofa and shot her as she came in. We just don't know."

Whether Maxim is telling the truth or not, it's enough to persuade Mrs de Winter to do everything she can to stop him being found guilty of Rebecca's murder.

Thanks to the efforts of Favell and Mrs Danvers, the coroner's inquest isn't going in Maxim's favour after Favell reveals Rebecca wanted to see him on the night of her death and that Maxim was willing to pay him to keep that a secret.

Mrs Danvers hints at the inquest that Rebecca's trip to see a doctor in London was because she was pregnant and the inquest is suspended pending a criminal investigation, which could see Maxim hanged for his crime.

However, Mrs de Winters – playing a more active role than she does in the novel – tracks down the doctor that Rebecca saw in London and discovers that Rebecca had terminal cancer.

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.

They head back to Manderley to find that Mrs Danvers has burned it down because she knows Maxim "killed the only person I loved".

"I can't let you have Manderley, it was ours, you see… I know you'll stand by him, but you'll never know happiness," Mrs Danvers tells Mrs de Winter before she jumps to her death in a change to the novel, where her fate is left ambiguous.

It's a more sympathetic take on Mrs Danvers than in du Maurier's book and previous adaptations, something that Wheatley feels is earned when you actually look at the events of the movie.

"If you just write down what's happened, and think about it without the glow of their relationship and the love and all of that side-salad, the actual reality of what's happened is that a man has murdered his wife, hidden the body and gotten away with it," he explained.

"[He's] gotten a new wife and is doing whatever he wants. This woman who loved Rebecca and was her best friend and has now discovered the guy she works with has murdered someone, she's completely in the right, in many ways."

Rebecca ends with Maxim and Mrs de Winter carrying on with their lives in Cairo and the ending voiceover from Mrs de Winter is a hopeful one: "I can see the woman I am now and I know that I have made the right decision. To save the one thing worth walking through flames for. Love."

But is it really an optimistic ending? Wheatley certainly doesn't view it that way.

"I think it depends on what your state of mind is when you watch it – you know, whether it's optimistic or not... I'm not sure it's that upbeat. I think they're trying to make the best of it in many ways, and it's kind of a bittersweet ending," he concluded.

"Because really, the ending is Danvers going, 'He killed his wife, and you're going to stand by him. And you'll never know happiness. Goodbye'. It's hard to recover from that.

"I like that it's a bit of a nasty taste in your mouth, that ending. Her looking to the camera is like… I feel like she's going to leave him. I don't feel like she's going to hang around for long because he's damaged goods.

"He's showing his hand, which is incredibly weak. He's a murderer, and she helped him get through that."

Rebecca is now available to watch on Netflix.

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