When we first meet Eileen Dunlop (Thomasin McKenzie), she’s sitting in her car by the chilly New England seaside, shoving a handful of snow down her skirt after witnessing a couple making out in another car parked nearby. Later, at her job at a local corrections facility, she fantasizes about the attractive guard on duty, masturbating at her desk when no one is looking. Just a few glimpses of her work (none of her colleagues like her distant attitude) and home life (she lives alone with her widowed, violent, and alcoholic father, who constantly compares her to her older sister and derides her as a failure) grant us a clear sense of the sort of person Eileen is: horny, lonely, and perhaps— based on her frequent fantasies of killing her father Jim (Shea Whigham)— a little unhinged deep down inside.
This is the premise of Eileen, a psychological thriller by director William Oldroyd from a screenplay by Luke Goebel and Ottessa Moshfegh, based on the latter’s own novel of the same name. Set in 1960s Massachusetts, Eileen seems like ripe material for a potent, female-focused thriller (particularly as it is predominantly set in such a typically rough-and-tumble environment as a prison). The intrigue— and Eileen’s hum-drum existence— is ratcheted up when the glamorous Rebecca Saint John (Anne Hathaway) arrives as the new prison psychologist. She appears to be everything Eileen is not: beautiful, beguiling, intelligent, worldly. And when Rebecca begins paying attention to Eileen— engaging her in intimate conversations around the office, inviting her out for drinks— Eileen quickly becomes infatuated.
The catalyst that sparks the long-festering turmoil within Eileen to finally bubble to the surface is found in a young inmate who actually committed patricide (the act that Eileen is always dreaming about) and his mother Rita (a riveting Marin Ireland). But while I can appreciate the “ha ha ha sickos” vibe of the hard left turn the third act takes, it doesn’t feel earned. In fact, not much in Eileen does. It provokes without any thoughtfulness, and rushes through each incident— particularly the climax— so quickly that neither characters’ arc feels especially satisfying. Oldroyd and cinematographer Ari Wegner fail to conjure a rich atmosphere from these disparate ingredients. McKenzie seems to have carved out a place for herself in Hollywood playing odd birds, but she’s miscast here; she’s never able to convincingly pull the violent thoughts and roiling anger out of Eileen. At least Hathaway is serving, even if she isn’t given the proper materials to craft an actual character. Like so much of Eileen, she’s fun to watch, but there’s nothing behind her but a jumble of ideas that don’t really connect.
Eileen is now playing in theaters. Runtime: 98 minutes. Rated R.
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