A shy young prison guard develops an infatuation with her workplace's new psychiatrist in William Oldroyd's twisty new thriller.
Christmastime is often filled with grand expectations and fraught with unrealised desires which makes it the perfect setting for a film about inescapable, twisted family relationships. Based on Ottessa Moshfegh’s first novel of the same name, which she adapts with husband and writer Luke Goebel, this is a sinister and darkly funny exploration of repression where every character is imprisoned by secrets and circumstance. Collaborating with director William Oldroyd, the pair have crafted a 1960s-set boozy psychological thriller spiked with menacing horror notes and Hitchcockian suspense.
Thomasin McKenzie stars as Eileen Dunlop, a young woman who works in a male correctional facility in Boston. She’s longing for reprieve from a depressing home life where she takes care of her alcoholic, ex-cop father (Shea Whigham). She’s also desperately yearning for affection and adventure. When sophisticated blonde counsellor Rebecca (Anne Hathaway) starts working at the prison Eileen thinks she’s found her ticket out of boredom. Their friendship is playful in stark contrast to the antagonistic and bitter nature of Eileen’s relationship with her father who spends his days drinking straight out of the bottle and shaming his daughter for her life choices.
Eileen is an observer and she is obsessive. She fantasises about sex and violence, and is devoted to her father’s needs over her own. Eileen is less gross than portrayed in the novel but still a weirdo, smart-mouthed at work, addicted to sugar and slightly feral in her pursuit of Rebecca, even if she never holds any power over the smart and sexy counsellor. Both of the women are filled with a sadness that evaporates during a steamy encounter at a local bar one night, but is of course destined to return when reality creeps back in.
The casting choices are spot on. McKenzie and Hathaway share great chemistry and it is thoroughly thrilling to spend time watching them flirt and giggle. McKenzie is all excitable smiles and blushes in their early scenes, and she hilariously emulates Rebecca’s behaviour. In the cold light of day McKenzie captivatingly embraces the melancholy of a broken woman. She is a character whose narrative brings to mind the immortal words spoken by Humphrey Bogart in Nicolas Ray’s In a Lonely Place, “I was born when she kissed me, I died when she left me, I lived a few weeks while she loved me.”
The period setting is wonderfully realised. Oldroyd turns the joyful golds and reds of the festive season into something disorientating and dread-filled with the striking use of light filters. Along with the 1960s soundtrack it gives the film an off-kilter romantic vibe that matches the odd thoughts that flitter through Eileen’s mind. Oldroyd’s threatening nightmare sequences illustrate Eileen’s warped fantasies – they puncture the film’s rhythm and are designed to shock. In the snowy New England which Eileen inhabits, desire and familial love is complexly depicted. It is at times chilling, morally reprehensible and frightening, but it also proves to be liberating for the central character.
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Published 30 Nov 2023
Excited to see what Thomasin McKenzie will do with this weirdo character.
The dark sense of humour from the novel is wonderfully translated.
An impressively crafted noir that skilfully captures isolation, dread and yearning.
By Elena Lazic
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