Eileen (2023) is a character study. It’s also about stretching out the tension. The question keeps occurring: where is all this going? It’s the mid-1960s, it’s wintery and grey Massachusetts. Eileen works as a secretary in a prison. She looks after an alcoholic ex-cop father. She has daydreams about sex, or about killing her father. As he says to her: “There are people who are like movie stars, they do things… and then there’s everyone else, they’re just there. Like you.” A movie star presence arrives in the new prison psychiatrist – Anne Hathaway – who dazzles Eileen with her authority, style and interest. Where is this going? Is their growing chemistry something more? When the string of tension finally snaps, I was very satisfied by the movie’s turn. Even when I was thinking, that I finally knew what type of movie it was, it still surprised me. Fronting as a neo-noir mystery, Eileen remains a character study.
Maybe Eileen came out to close to Last Night In Soho, and people feeling like Tommasin McKenzie is doing the same thing. This is a better movie and I think McKenzie’s great here, hesitant and nervy, sparking with the promise of Hathaway’s presence. There’s always something extra and pronounced about Hathaway as a star, and it works so well for this role and her theatrical glamorous air. Great supporting players in Shea Whigham and Malin Ireland. I loved Ari Wegner’s cinematography and especially Richard Reed Parry’s moody, arch score. Directed by William Oldroy (Lady Macbeth), based on the novel by Ottessa Moshfegh. Recommended.
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