Eileen Review – Anne Hathaway and Thomasin McKenzie Make a Bad Story Good

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Category: Film

Published on Wednesday, 15 November 2023 15:57

Written by Janet Walker

Eileen, from NEON, brings to the screen a story of desire, and compelling need, in 1964 Massachusetts, as two women, one introverted and vulnerable becomes entangled with the mind-altering manipulation of a more sophisticated, determined, femme-fatale.

The film opens focusing on Eileen, played by Thomasin McKenzie, sitting in her car watching the couple next to her engaged in back seat romance, and their passion, for young Eileen, was palpable as she begins to masturbate.

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Employed at the local youth prison, Eileen is lost in that in-between time. She has no direction for her future, other than what every other female does in 1964, find a job, a husband, have children, and hope that it doesn't turn into the hell that she witnesses every day, as she still lives at home caring for her alcoholic father, the former Chief of Police, Jim Dunlop, played by Shea Whigham.

Eileen's life is the same each day, a treadmill of work, buying two pints of booze for her father, watching others engage in sex, and wondering about a new inmate, Lee Polk, played by Sam Nivola, would butcher his father. She is invisible and there is a drive within her to be seen, to be liked, to be recognized for something other than her drunken father's daughter.

Eileen's delicate features mask the volcano of unrequited desire that is churning below the surface. And her vulnerability, obvious, especially when the sophisticated, sultry, and intoxicating Rebecca, played by Anne Hathaway, fresh out of Harvard with a graduate degree in Psychology, she arrives at the prison, cutting through the darkness with a stylish, invigorating, appearance.

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Not only does Rebecca command the attention of everyone, but she also narrows her focus on the vulnerable Eileen, and begins a slow subtle seduction, that could easily be interpretated as the longings and imaginations of a shy, lonely, hidden sexually repressed, young woman.

As it gets closer to Christmas, Eileen, who has fallen for each tactic and while her sexual fantasies are traditional, the mind-altering manipulations of Rebecca, cause her to rethink her own path.  So, when Rebecca calls her and invites her over for wine, Eileen, who is starved for attention, agrees.

Once she arrives, the diabolical and dark side of Rebecca, who is desperate to make a name for herself as a psychologist, surfaces as she explains this isn't her house, it is the Polk house, and her suspicions as to the reason Lee Polk murdered his father.

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Suddenly, she is explaining that she needs Eileen to help her force Mrs. Polk, played by Marin Ireland, whom she believed she could manipulate, with her Harvard degree and sophistication into confessing the truth, which ended with the two physically fighting, and now Mrs. Polk is tied up in the basement, and she needs Eileen, who desperately needs someone to need her, to help her.

This sets up the finale.

Eileen, which I first screened at Sundance 2023, is saved by the performances. The ensemble cast led by Ann Hathaway, Thomasin McKenzie and in the finale with Marin Ireland, take this so-so story and turn it into a fascinating display of manipulation, desperation, rage, and hidden secrets.

Anne Hathaway's turn as a sultry Harvard psychologist, with a dark side, driven to make a name for herself in the psychology circles off the sorrows and taboo of the injured is played with finesse and skill. Thomasin McKenzie attacks her role with enthusiasm and fearlessness. The acting throughout was strong.

Eileen arrives in theaters December 1, 2023. See it.

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Country: U.S.

Language: English.

Runtime: 97 minutes.

Director:  William Oldroyd.

Writer: Ottessa Moshfegh, Luke Goebel. Based upon the novel 'Eileen' by Ottessa Moshfegh.

Producer:  Anthony Bregman, Stefanie Azpiazu, Peter Cron, Luke Goebel, Ottessa Moshfegh, William Oldroyd.

Cast: Thomasin McKenzie, Anne Hathaway, Shea Whigham, Marin Ireland, Owen Teague, Siobhan Fallon Hogan, Tonye Patano, William Hill, Patrick Noonan, Peter McRobbie.