After good word of mouth on the festival circuit over the past year, ‘Eileen’ finally lands on UK shores. The film, based on the prize-winning bestselling novel from author Ottessa Moshfegh, is directed by William Oldroyd who delivered the truly outstanding ‘Lady Macbeth’ back in 2016. So with this pedigree behind the lens, and the amazing paring of Thomasin McKenzie and Anne Hathaway leading the line, this was surely going to be an easy-win. Sadly some stylistic approaches and a finale that lacks common sense really disrupts what would have been a very competent thriller.
The plot revolves around Thomasin McKenzie’s character Eileen Dunlop. She’s a young woman stuck in a directionless void – spending her days working in the offices of the local correctional facility, and her evenings caring for her drunk former-policeman father who is determined to drink himself to death. She spends her days fantasising about having illicit encounters with random people as her uneventful, mundane existence creeps along. That changes when the prison hires a new psychologist named Rebecca (a sultry Anne Hathaway), who is a breath of fresh air for this quiet, 1960s Boston suburb. Eileen strikes up a friendship with Rebecca, and perhaps more, as she becomes obsessed with her. But a fateful encounter will put their friendship to the test as Eileen succumbs to her inner-most thoughts.
For the most part, ‘Eileen’ is a decent watch with very strong leading turns from the brilliant paring of Thomasin McKenzie and Anne Hathaway. McKenzie is frequently the best thing in every film she is in, and her stock only rises with each passing project. She continues on from a magnetic lead performance in Edgar Wright’s retro-thriller ‘Last Night in Soho’, channelling a lot of that film’s mystery and paranoia to this character. She is far and away the best thing in the film, with director William Oldroyd knowing how best to capture her magnetic charm onscreen. It’s a role that requires a dark touch, and she manages to seamlessly balance the two personalities of Eileen exceptionally well.
After a few dud projects (including ‘The Hustle’, a truly awful remake of ‘Dirty Rotten Scoundrels’), it’s nice to see Anne Hathaway back doing decent big screen roles. She oozes charm and charisma in ‘Eileen’ and makes for a very believable object of affection for Eileen. She shares a good chemistry with McKenzie and together they carry the film through the bumpy, disjointed final act. Shea Whigham, Siobhan Fallon Hogan, Patrick Noonan, Tonye Patano and Owen Teague round off the supporting cast.
‘Eileen’ is presented in a retro visual way – including using Universal’s iconic 1960s ident at the start of the movie. This didn’t work for me at all because I felt that it needed to earn that usage. This was evident throughout the film, which was shot in the style of the thrillers of the era, but which always came across like a gimmick rather than adding to the actual substance of the material they were making. This was most keenly felt in the final shot of the film. No spoilers on actual plot details here, but the film ends visually like an episode of ‘The Rockford Files’ or how a show of similar ilk would end. The title treatment and music are off and it conjures up a very unsatisfying finale that borders on parody. It’s use of dream sequences is very odd too – which at the start of the film offer great, sharp shocks that jar the audience quite well, but which later descend into overused and, at times, entirely superfluous moments that disrupt the narrative flow of the film.
The events of the finale spiral out of control as you might expect, but they don’t follow the logic and slow-burn tension that was well established during the first two thirds of ‘Eileen’. It just felt rushed and unbelievable. Especially the actions of some of the characters, who seem to lose basic common sense on numerous occasions. I can suspend disbelief, especially in genres like this, but there were too many questionable routes the characters took that I felt were at odds with what had come before. And that meant that my enjoyment of ‘Eileen’ was hampered by a clumsy and hurried final act. It’s a shame because Thomasin McKenzie and Anne Hathaway are great in this. But like most thrillers, the final act lets itself down badly.
Cast: Thomasin McKenzie, Anne Hathaway, Shea Whigham, Siobhan Fallon Hogan, Patrick Noonan, Tonye Patano, Owen Teague Director: William Oldroyd Writer: Luke Goebel, Ottessa Moshfegh Certificate: 15 Duration: 97 mins Released by: Universal Release date: 1st December 2023
