totally miscast emilia fox be too confident and beautiful and elegant to play the plain and awkward and painfully shy second mr de winter . charles dance be too old to play max de winter ( he suppose to be 15 20 year old then her and not 30 ) and he lack any sense of darkness or anger . even manderley itself be dreadfully unimpressive . only diana rigg and a mr danvers come anywhere near create a character similar to the book . the directing be of the point and shoot variety and with no subtlety . the one trick and with mrs danvers and the light and be lift straight from hitchcock . in fact the whole thing have no sense of mystery or doom or tragedy . there be no chemistry between the lead and despite the script show them kiss passionately at a time in the book when he barely touch her . there no romance between them and in fact their kiss seem awkward and force and and a bit disgusting and give how much old than her he look ( not to mention his lack of sex appeal and passion ) the script itself be terrible and deviate from the book and have her challenge him at a time when in the book and she can barely speak to him . if you love the book and like i do and do not bother with this . watch the hitchcock version and with it great acting and sense of tragedy and doom and deep romance and a script practically lift from the book and instead .