{"id":32511,"date":"2023-12-10T01:02:52","date_gmt":"2023-12-10T01:02:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shows4.com\/?p=32511"},"modified":"2023-12-10T01:02:52","modified_gmt":"2023-12-10T01:02:52","slug":"eileen-review-anne-hathaway-seduces-and-beguiles-her-way-through-a-twisty-thriller","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shows4.com\/?p=32511","title":{"rendered":"Eileen review: Anne Hathaway seduces and beguiles her way through a twisty thriller"},"content":{"rendered":"
William Oldroyd\u2019s debut, 2016\u2019s Lady Macbeth, cannon-shot Florence Pugh towards stardom. A taut, economical period drama, it practically curled itself up at the actor\u2019s feet, happy to warm itself by the fire that burnt in her eyes. Oldroyd\u2019s follow-up, the Sixties-set thriller Eileen, could, at a glance, offer the same to its lead Thomasin McKenzie. But she\u2019s already shown us her knack for this kind of electrically-repressed woman, the mouse with a roar in her stomach, in Edgar Wright\u2019s Last Night in Soho. Instead, the thrill of Eileen lies in how McKenzie plays off the film\u2019s inciting spark, a blonde-bobbed enigma played by Anne Hathaway.<\/p>\n

McKenzie\u2019s Eileen is the younger, unloved daughter of an alcoholic ex-cop (Shea Whigham). She works at the local prison, outside Boston, patting down visiting daughters, mothers and wives while she daydreams about young officers slamming her up against the wall for a quick feel. At home, her father cusses out those who were born only to take up space. \u201cThat\u2019s you, Eileen\u201d, he makes sure to add. His old gun is still in the house. She could kill him. Or, perhaps, she could kill herself. Eileen\u2019s boredom teeters on a deadly precipice.<\/p>\n

Hathaway\u2019s Rebecca is the prison\u2019s new psychologist, fresh from Harvard. She warms to Eileen, and invites her out for a drink. If their dynamic is in any way reminiscent of Todd Haynes\u2019s lesbian romance Carol \u2013 the brunette na\u00eff and the older, elegant confidante \u2013 Oldroyd makes sure to knock the comparison into an uncanny slant. Eileen is no innocent. McKenzie, in each illicit smile, initiates us into a galaxy of uncouth thoughts, ignited by Lee Polk (Sam Nivola), the young man jailed for murdering his law enforcement father, and the way Rebecca so openly spurns male attention to be, talk, and dance with her. What, here, is love? And what is desire, jealousy, or merely a search for permission? In Carol, Cate Blanchett\u2019s elegant sophisticate refers to Rooney Mara\u2019s Therese as a \u201cstrange girl\u2026 flung out of space\u201d. Here, Eileen is to Rebecca \u201ca girl in a Dutch painting \u2013 plain, but fascinating.\u201d Hathaway doesn\u2019t exude warmth, but something at a more wry, but equally seductive, remove. With her head thrown back, and a cigarette dangling from her hand, she looks at Eileen like she might otherwise regard one of her patients, with a curious desire to take a hammer to her defences.<\/p>\n

Oldroyd is working off a script by Ottessa Moshfegh and her partner, Luke Goebel, which serves as an adaptation of Moshfegh\u2019s 2015 novel of the same name. It was the author\u2019s attempt to deliver her own iteration of \u201cthe airport novel\u201d and, so, Eileen and Rebecca are ushered towards shocking, unexpected fates.\n<\/p><\/div>\n

\n
\"\"<\/a><\/div>\n
Related Videos<\/strong><\/div>\n