Eileen

Grade: A-

Eileen has one of my favorite opening shots of the year. It’s a perfect way for director William Oldroyd (Lady Macbeth) to let us know right off the bat what kind of movie this will be. It takes place in Boston in the 1960s, and looks like it could have been made then. As you could say with The Holdovers, they don’t make movies like Eileen often.

I’m not a cigarette smoker, but I always love the way smoke is filmed in the movies. When you have one that’s set in the 60s, when people smoked at home, in their cars, at work, at the hospital, etc, I’m happy at how prevalent it is. Our title character is played by Thomasin McKenzie (Jojo Rabbit), and I hope she soon becomes so well-known that I’ll no longer feel the need to list her filmography in parentheses. Eileen is 24 years old – the younger of two children. Her mother is deceased, and she takes care of her alcoholic, “retired” police officer father. She works at the local prison, doing busywork administrative assistant stuff.

Enter Rebecca, the new prison psychologist. Played by Anne Hathaway, she looks like she just stepped off the Femme Fatale/Noir/Hitchcock Leading Lady train. Eileen is enamored with Rebecca, almost to a homosexual infatuation level – or maybe not so almost. They strike up a friendship, and go out for drinks. It’s disturbing how much of a free pass obnoxious old drunk guys in bars get, when it comes to their interest in young females there by themselves. The worst they seem to get is an “ok, settle down” from management. In The Royal Hotel, it was like “we can’t ban them. We’d have to ban everyone.” One of the few ways the movie falters is in all the fakeouts where something shocking happens, but then it turns out to be just a fantasy of Eileen’s.

But there is a twist – a real one. Nothing I’ve said here has hinted at or will prepare you for the big reveal. One line of dialogue, delivered so quickly and matter-of-factly, will rock your world – and it sets up the events of the final act. Hathaway is quite interesting as Rebecca, somewhat of a “type” from older films. McKenzie is strong, sweet, confident, and carries the movie. Siobhan Fallon Hogan (from Boiler Room, The Negotiator, and the bus driver in Forrest Gump) has her usual amusing deadpan moments as one of the workers at the prison.

I’m not hearing any rumblings about Eileen within the awards talk. It may end up being this year’s Bones and All or Bringing Out the Dead – a late-in-the-year, unrewarded, underseen gem. One thing I can guarantee is it’s better than some of the things that will be up for Globes, Oscars, and the like. I can see it getting a long-lived home on a streaming service, where people will fall upon it while browsing and say: “Eileen? A thriller with Anne Hathaway and Thomasin McKenzie from Jojo Rabbit? Why haven’t I heard of this? Only an hour and 37 minutes – let’s put it on!”

Grade: A-