Review: Eileen

By John Corrado

★★★ (out of 4)

The sophomore feature from director William Oldroyd (Lady MacBeth), Eileen is a solid little psychological thriller that is all about building a sense of atmosphere to slowly suffocate us, before revealing the story’s true intentions.

Adapted from Ottessa Moshfegh‘s 2015 novel of the same name, the story is set in the early 1960s during a snowy Christmas in Massachusetts, which helps establish a chilly, wintery tone that adds to the film’s foreboding tension.

The film is named for Eileen Dunlop (Thomasin McKenzie), a lonely young secretary at a New England boys prison. She got the job through her father (Shea Whigham), a former police chief and mean alcoholic who she is left to look after at home.

She is bored and horny (she often absentmindedly touches herself, perhaps to assuage both feelings). But Eileen’s world opens up with the arrival of Rebecca Saint John (Anne Hathaway), who is brought in as the new psychiatrist at the prison. Rebecca is a modern woman with her own ideas about how the prison system should be run to prevent recidivism. Eileen becomes a natural ally for Rebecca, and the two women engage in a sort of will-they, won’t-they game that goes to some much darker places.

Mixing film noir elements with a possible Carol-esque romance, Eileen holds us in suspense, never entirely sure where the story is going. When the film does reveal its play, it’s a chilling twist that sucks the oxygen out of the room, kept grounded by the strong performances. Both lead actresses are able to have chemistry together, while also keeping us guessing as to their true intentions.

If her Boston accent is somewhat spotty, McKenzie continues to reveal new sides of herself as one of our most promising young actresses, playing Eileen as shy and quiet but with a possible dark side. Hathaway is a natural fit for this sort of confident, alluring character, and she lends a captivating presence to the film as Rebecca. Marin Ireland rounds out the cast as the mother of one of the prisoners (Sam Nivola), making the most of her screen time, including a searing monologue.

The film is well-paced at 98 minutes, designed to offer both dark entertainment and to keep us on edge through the story’s various turns. Oldroyd directs with confidence and shows a steady control over the tone and atmosphere, aided by Ari Wegner’s cinematography, which captures the warm look of film despite being shot digitally. It’s topped off with a variety of period-authentic needle drops on the soundtrack, which are tied together by Richard Reed Parry’s appealingly jazzy musical score.