It can be disarming to watch a film unfold, cognizant of a sharp left turn lingering just around the corner but having no idea what form it will take. Infamously jarring tonal and thematic shifts, such as those of Takashi Miike’s 1999 horror thriller Audition or, to a lesser extent, Bong Joon-ho’s Parasite, play as a cruel jolt to the senses. Other works, like Paul Thomas Anderson’s Phantom Thread, take a gentler approach, slowly twisting the knife within their carefully constructed narratives to reveal a more devious layer hidden underneath. The pleasure derived from this type of storytelling is often less in the destructive payoff of these elements than the buildup, the creeping anticipation that you’re treading into potentially dangerous waters. Adapted from Ottessa Moshfegh’s debut novel of the same name, William Oldroyd’s sophomore feature, Eileen, may take a shocking turn in the third act, but it’s the journey towards that point that provides the amplest rewards.
When the platinum blonde Rebecca (Anne Hathaway), a visiting guidance counselor, first crosses the sights of 24-year-old juvenile prison secretary Eileen (Thomasin McKenzie), she represents an instantaneous means of escape. Escape from boredom, from the piercing loneliness and inescapable sensation of time slipping away into the ether. It’s the early days of the 1960s, but Eileen has found herself trapped in the small New England town where she grew up, tending tiredly to her father, Jim (Shea Whigham – that guy from every movie), a former police chief and abusive drunk with a penchant for waving his gun around at children. Her only release from the relentless tedium of her day-to-day existence comes in the form of vivid daydreams, mostly sexual but occasionally violent, which allow her to act out passions and desires she cannot enact in the real world. The older Rebecca doesn’t seem to have this problem, though. She brazenly fights off a drunk at the bar and tells off a prison guard who insists on handcuffing a prisoner. She smokes Virginia Slims and orders martinis “with no olives this time.” Needless to say, Eileen is instantly smitten.
For much of its runtime, Eileen plays like an edgier and more profane version of Todd Haynes’s Carol, as if you filtered that movie’s forbidden period romance through the lens of a twisty Hitchcockian thriller. Like with Carol, it soon becomes apparent that Rebecca needs Eileen as much the younger woman needs her. It’s the patient unveiling of their mutual obsession with one another, both emotional and physical, that Oldroyd plays for maximum tension. Do they love each other, or is it something else? Of course, Eileen is also a much stranger individual than she initially appears. Eccentricities played casually for laughs give way to instincts that are far more sinister, a thematic element that the screenplay entertains but never quite resolves. As shocking as its third act turn might be, the film falters following the big reveal, and any hope that it might descend ever further into something truly uncontrolled goes lamentably out the window. Even a memorable monologue by Marin Ireland can’t salvage the narrative’s conclusion from feeling oddly underwhelming. Oldroyd’s sense of direction and pacing are so strong, however, that they mostly make up for these deficiencies.
The screenplay, written by Moshfegh herself along with her husband, Luke Goebel, is surprisingly comedic, relishing in the vulgar contrasts between Eileen’s fantasies and her often harsh reality. After a night out with Rebecca, Eileen returns to the bar and orders a martini while smoking the rest of her date’s cigarette. A reasonable assumption would be that Eileen is transforming Rebecca, that is until it hard cuts to her vomiting her guts out in the car, having crashed it into the side of her house the night before. These playful and sometimes grotesque subversions of the audience’s expectations are what makes Eileen such a memorable and unpredictable character. There’s plenty of reason to be on her side, but there’s something off about her psychology that keeps you on edge.
Shot by The Power of the Dog cinematographer Ari Wegner, Eileen appears to use film, but was actually captured on digital with period-accurate lenses. The results are visually dazzling, recalling similar recreations of classical aesthetics in works like Joanna Hogg’s The Eternal Daughter while also imbuing this imagery with the dimly lit darkness of a pulpy paperback novel. Oldroyd’s direction is slick and intentional, emphasizing repeated motifs of characters looking out of windows and through the laminated glass of prison visitation rooms. He allows the camera to linger on characters’ faces far past when they’ve spoken, which lends an uncomfortable edge to sequences that initially appear warm and intimate.
Technical precision aside, it’s McKenzie’s and Hathaway’s well-matched lead performances that permit the film to work in spite of its oddball storyline. Hathaway, especially, is doing some of the best work of her career. As an audience, we understand that there’s more to Rebecca than meets the eye, but it’s Hathaway’s precise magnetism – alluring but guarded, confident but strangely insecure – that allows us to see her as Eileen does. McKenzie is also terrific, though her attempt at a New England accent wavers heavily throughout the film. Though rare, there are several instances where her intonation is so garbled that the dialogue becomes indecipherable. It’s her facial expressions that do most of the talking, though. Weaponizing the same wide-eyed vulnerability that made her so sympathetic in films like Leave No Trace or even Last Night in Soho, McKenzie’s portrayal is of a multi-layered and enigmatic protagonist who more than earns the right to be her film’s namesake. Though Rooney Mara is exceptional in the part, Carol could never be renamed “Therese.” The audience’s eyes are always fixed on Cate Blanchett, just as Therese’s are. But this is Eileen, and the film never lets you forget that she’s the one you should be focusing on. “Just watch,” the film seems to be saying, “watch and see what happens.”
Photo courtesy of NEON
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