‘Eileen’ Contains Multitudes

November 30, 2023

jmunney Cinema, Movie Reviews , , , , , , 1 Comment

Come on, Eileen! (CREDIT: NEON)

Starring: Thomasin McKenzie, Anne Hathaway, Shea Wigham, Marin Ireland, Owen Teague

Director: William Oldroyd

Running Time: 98 Minutes

Rating: R for Masshole Behavior and a Sudden Violent Turn

Release Date: December 1, 2023 (Theaters)

What’s It About?: Eileen Dunlop (Thomasin McKenzie) has a real going-nowhere job as a secretary at a juvenile prison in 1960s coastal Massachusetts. She lives with her alcoholic widowed father, Jim (Shea Wigham), who mostly berates her for not measuring up to her married sister. But her world is suddenly opened up by an exponential order of magnitude when she befriends the prison’s new resident psychologist, Rebecca (Anne Hathaway). There’s an undeniable frisson of romance as well, but Eileen is so enthralled by Rebecca mainly because she’s never encountered anyone so cosmopolitan. Their connection is deep and genuine, but a much darker story is lurking in plain sight

What Made an Impression?: Breaking Free: In the likes of Leave No Trace, Jojo Rabbit, Last Night in Soho, and well, pretty much everything she’s had a starring role in, Thomasin McKenzie has specialized in playing the most delicate of delicate creatures. And Eileen sure looks like she’s just the latest scarred entrant in this distinguished lineup. But she quickly demonstrates that she’s much more complicated than a standard-issue shrinking violet. Her self-assuredness was actually there all along, or at least it was present by the time that we meet her. She just needed the right spark to be set off.
Sapphic Thrills: What a joy it is to luxuriate in endlessly seductive dialogue! While it’s abundantly clear in their conversations just how smitten Eileen is with Rebecca, there’s also a hint that she’s somewhere in the middle of the Kinsey scale, as we also see her fantasizing about a male co-worker. So her romantic struggles thus far haven’t been for lack of bodies, but for want of wit and philosophy. Rebecca is just the right amount of individualistic and unapologetic to activate the same in Eileen. And the dialogue as a whole is just wonderfully ferocious throughout, coming courtesy of co-writers Luke Goebel and Ottessa Moshfegh (the latter of whom is adapting her own novel).
Here Comes the Twist: On Christmas Eve, Rebecca unexpectedly invites Eileen over for the evening. And she eagerly accepts. After all, her next best option is looking over her dad while his liver wastes away. At this point in the story, I was all ready for the two ladies to just toast to the baby Jesus as the credits roll, or maybe, if they’re feeling dangerous, to drive away together to somewhere that their love will be accepted. But then something much more unpredictable happens. I won’t say anything anymore, and honestly I’m worried I may have already said too much. But this was the moment for me that Eileen went from perfectly satisfying to astoundingly unforgettable. It might have been nice if the running time were 10 or 20 minutes longer to let this swerve breathe a little bit. Still, it’s a bracing and breathtaking conclusion to an unexpected thrill ride.

Eileen is Recommended If You Like: Carol, Lady MacBeth, Gone Girl

Grade: 4 out of 5 Martinis

This Is a Movie Review: It Isn’t Shakespeare, But This ‘Lady Macbeth’ Is Still Dangerous (and Sexy as Hell)

July 12, 2017

jmunney Cinema, Movie Reviews , , , , , , 1 Comment

CREDIT: Laurie Sparham/Roadside Attractions

This review was originally published on News Cult in July 2017.

Starring: Florence Pugh, Cosmo Jarvis, Naomi Ackie, Paul Hilton, Christopher Fairbank

Director: William Oldroyd

Running Time: 89 Minutes

Rating: R for Unapologetically Passionate Sex and Scarily Desperate Killing

Release Date: July 14, 2017 (Limited)

Sometimes you are knocked out by a supernova of an onscreen performance that you never saw coming. Florence Pugh in Lady Macbeth is the latest stunner to pull it off. Logically, I can understand why I had previously never heard of her and why this film in particular snuck up on me. She is 21 and has only three previous IMDb credits, and Lady Macbeth stars English actors I have never heard of. But emotionally, it feels like her star power exists outside of time and that I should have somehow sensed her talent my whole life.

Director William Oldroyd’s film is not based on Shakespeare, but rather Nikolai Leskov’s 1865 novella Lady Macbeth of the Mtensk District. Still, the central character is a ruthlessly canny power-grabber, so the Bard’s influence is clear and intentional. This adaptation keeps it in the nineteenth century but transfers its setting to England. Katherine (Pugh) is married off to Alexander (Paul Hilton), who is either impotent or uninterested in her, or both. But he offers the security of an estate to live in, and it is not like she has any say in the matter anyway. At first, this appears like it is going to be the bleakest of tough watches. It may be true that English women suffered systemic abuses in this time period, but that does not make it any easier to endure.

Soon enough, though, control of the situation, and the narrative, shifts rapidly. With Alexander away from the estate for weeks to attend to pressing business, Katherine initiates a torrid affair with a groundskeeper (Cosmo Jarvis) and dispatches her father-in-law (Christopher Fairbank), the owner of the estate. Her handmaid (Naomi Ackie) is so shocked that she is rendered mute for the remainder of the film.

Katherine doubles down at every opportunity to procure what she desires to the point that the only possible conclusion is the most lethal of conflicts. Lady Macbeth admirably does not back down from the dangerous requirements it has thus set for itself. At first, you feel sorry for Pugh. Then suddenly you hail her as a new feminist icon. And then in a blink of an eye, you have never been more scared of anybody.

Lady Macbeth is Recommended If You Like: Atonement, Mad Max: Fury Road, You’re Next, Being Aroused and Scared at the Same Time

Grade: 4.5 out of 5 Corsets