A woman’s friendship with a new co-worker at the prison facility where she works takes a sinister turn.
In “Eileen,” fantasy creates pleasure. The promising setup of this semi-erotic thriller revolves around one girl worn down by her abusive father and elderly co-workers until she’s nothing but a teakettle waiting for a reason to boil. This kind of slow-build pressure unfolds neatly throughout “Eileen” for a lengthy period, and while it works masterfully to compound on itself, it never quite pays off. Despite promising full revenge in this revenge thriller, there’s a more realistic ending that implies a punitive conclusion but never delivers on it for us visually. “Eileen” delivers plenty of wonderful performances and a reasonably tight story, but the finale leaves viewers hungry for more.
In “Eileen,” Thomasin McKenzie plays the titular character. Eileen works at a boys’ prison doing intake and permitting mothers to visit with their criminal sons. She works to take care of her alcoholic father, a former chief of police everybody fears more than respects. He’s the kind of alcoholic who comes out in the evening to wave his gun at the mailman for no real reason. Balancing a fraught home life with a workplace that neither treasures nor validates her, she encounters Rebecca. Anne Hathaway plays the new doctor at the boys’ prison. With a degree from Harvard, Rebecca fights to carve out space for herself amid the boys’ club of orderlies and doctors. When she befriends Eileen, it’s only a matter of time before Rebecca’s devil-may-care attitude whips her into a frenzy. Together, the two are set on a path spiraling towards an inevitable violent conclusion that never quite delivers on its potential revenge premise.
McKenzie drives the story as the mousy Eileen. What works so well in the film are the glimpses of inner life we get. When Eileen sees a guard she’s attracted to, we watch the guard approach and attempt to undress her in front of everyone before we understand: these are Eileen’s dreams. Her repressed sexuality, all bottled up, peeks out in glimpses of her arousal and anger in equal measure as she imagines sexual flings, violent murder, and even suicide. Her high-pitched voice captures Eileen’s desperation, and try as she might, the audience feels she is a danger waiting to happen.
Hathaway forms the other leg of this tripod. Casting director William Oldroyd benefits from a senior, legacy actor carrying the sultry scenes with her and stringing McKenzie along. Hathaway is downright lethal in this movie, and she does a great job of rebounding between emotions, especially as her frustrations build on each other, threatening to collapse.
Lastly, we have Shea Whigham starring as the final pillar. His character work never fails to delight, and given a meatier role like this, Whigham delivers on some memorable abuse. The former chief of police, Jim Dunlop, boozes through every scene with a greasiness and ooze that slithers under your skin. Before he’s said a word, you know he’s no good for Eileen.
These two characters build up the most tension in the movie. The push and pull of Eileen’s abusive father telling her she’s nothing or the new doctor Rebecca saying she must have incredible dreams slowly tears Eileen apart. As an audience member, we witness this destruction firsthand. Rebecca winds Eileen up before her dad takes her down completely. It’s this layering that the film builds upon but fails to deliver a full emotional finale.
Make no mistake, Eileen ends up in a violent circumstance (the less said in this review, the better), but the cat-and-mouse of Eileen and Rebecca falls apart at the very end. Her tension spills out in graphic form, and what might appear as subtle manipulation by Rebecca clears up to resemble regular infatuation. Some of the mystery and anticipated double-crossings never quite happen, and we’re left with the more honest experience of this story: that Eileen’s inner life shocks and appalls everyone, forcing her to find her own solace.
The movie delves into literary symbolism and delicately tracks the tension. Admittedly, the runtime felt overwritten by not one but two different “dates” between the two women, which might spell it out more gradually over time for other audience members but made their relationship particularly clear after the first date. We know what to expect from this genre, but the film teases us, parsing information slowly.
Its period setting and early actions really make the film sing. Were it not for the flat ending of the last ten minutes, the entire movie might rate much more highly. Still, there’s plenty to enjoy in this low-stakes domestic thriller. It’s never quite so sexual or as violent as it pretends to be, and when it does finally blow up, it does so with little effect. I enjoyed my viewing but might be pushed to seek other fare when scrolling through my AMC app.
In Theaters Friday, December 1st
