Eileen

Thomasin McKenzie has been one of my favorite actors ever since I first saw Jojo Rabbit. Any movie in which she’s featured, I’ll at least look at the trailer. Add another actor I love, and/or a compelling poster which conveys an intriguing atmosphere, and I may just dive in blind. Fortunately for me, Eileen was the opening night feature at this year’s NHFF, so my first experience with it was in a crowd. Seeing such an intense movie in a sea of people often makes for some of my favorite theatergoing moments, as the crowd can’t help but react at certain key dialog or plot points. The energy will shift, sometimes eliciting murmurs or gasps, other times an unnatural stillness. Eileen got both.

Eileen (Thomasin Mckensize) is a secretary at Moorehead, a boys prison in the Boston area. She lives with her bitter, alcoholic father (Shea Whigham), a retired police chief, who’s constantly berating and demeaning her. Her life is quiet, although we quickly learn that her interests and fascinations are uncouth: she touches herself while watching a random couple make out at the beach, and she seems taken with prisoner Leonard Polk (Sam Nivola), who stabbed his father to death in his sleep. Something about her is just…different. So when psychologist Dr. Rebecca Saint John (Anne Hathaway) arrives, Eileen is enamored. Rebecca glamorous, from Manhattan, and carries a Harvard education. She acts like she owns the place, flouting rules and doing as she pleases. Against guidelines, she refuses to let Leo be handcuffed while they talk in her office. In one of the most exciting moments of Eileen’s life, Rebecca invites her out for a drink.

The story plays out in a meandering, almost dreamlike way. Sometimes literally, such as Eileen’s numerous fantasies about killing her father, but often just in the way Rebecca changes the whole vibe of a room, and brightens Eileen’s spirits. As their friendship grows, it starts to head towards romance, at least to Eileen’s eyes.

But all the while, something doesn’t feel right. There are a bunch of hints that there’s another shoe to drop, be it in Rebecca’s past or Eileen’s future or the involvement of a third character or…something. It comes from the aggressive yet calmly delivered verbal abuse dished out by her father, from the flighty and confidently metropolitan Rebecca, from Eileen’s daydreams and desire to simultaneously be different and to go unnoticed.

All of that is hammered home with a modern jazz inspired score from Richard Reed Parry of Arcade Fire fame. It’s an unsubtle score, as the movie has no interest in pretending Eileen is in a idyllic place. Along with all the horns and rhythms are many discordances, notes shifted just enough to feel weird and unsettling. It’s very deliberately messy and unpleasant, but not excessively so, forcing you to ask why. Until the moment it becomes crystal clear.

As should be unsurprising when talking about a film surrounding a prison, the themes of punishment and justice are prevalent. While they only really discuss Leo Polk’s situation, there are a handful of other incidents both shown and alluded to which require consideration. In particular, there’s an incredible, emotional monologue delivered by Mrs. Polk (Marin Ireland) in the final act which does an outstanding job of highlighting a frequent origin of evil, and even garnering some empathy for a person who could rightfully be described as a monster. The film never takes for granted nor flattens out the complexity of human behavior.

Its primary concerns are a sense of self, of personal identity, and how the desire to be someone else can express itself. And when it brings out another side of you, the question is whether it was always there and you were just hiding it (be it consciously or through denial), or if it actually and actively changed who you are. Some of that is the limitation of story, and the inability to truly know the inner life of a character: it’s hard to carve out enough time to fully understand them before the story gets moving. But some of it is a true chicken or the egg situation, as it very well may be unclear to themselves.

Unfortunately, my favorite parts come late in the movie, so I can’t say much without spoiling what is (in my humble opinion) one of the great movie reveals. What I can say is in the scenes that follow, we’re treated to a few absolutely transcendent performances. I already mentioned Ireland’s monologue above. Also, while McKenzie is excellent throughout (including a pretty well done Boston accent!), she finds another gear in this final section, flipping a switch that we had not previously seen in the character, but which she embodies seamlessly and believably. We’re not the only ones caught off guard: this change helps drive the plot to its conclusion, as other characters adjust their perceptions of her, and correspondingly, their behavior.

But for me, the standout is absolutely Anne Hathaway. From the moment she bursts on screen, a beguiling mixture of Jackie Onassis and Marliyn Monroe, she commands all your attention. Fitting, of course, since her mere presence dominates Eileen’s thoughts from the moment they meet. She plays it with a bravado that feels so effortless and natural, only letting it slip for a handful of carefully calculated moments which serve to build out her inner life, and set the stage for later in the movie. Which adds up to an incredible depiction of a woman coming apart later on, in a few scenes which form quite possibly the best one-two punch of the year. Given the lack of buzz around this movie, I worry she’ll be passed over for a Best Supporting nomination, which would be a frustrating snub for some of the best work of her career.

This isn’t a film with tons and tons of layers which we’ll be picking apart and mulling over for years to come. It has subtext and nuance and well-realized characters, sure. But it’s not a abstract tale like The Boy and the Heron, or a one which reverberates into the modern day like Oppenheimer, or a fun time Pinball: The Man Who Saved the Game. But it’s an incredibly compelling, super tense, and immaculately constructed tale, one whose central character is off of center in an intriguing way, and which invites you into her world.