It’s surprising that Eileen’s release last year made little noise given the people involved. Premiering at Sundance, Eileen is an adaptation of Ottessa Moshfegh’s award-winning novel of the same name. Moshfegh is also the author of My Year of Rest and Relaxation, a novel that gained popularity in online book communities with TikTok skyrocketing its notoriety. With rumors of an adaptation of My Year and Rest and Relaxation, Eileen could be the beginning of many adaptations for the prominent author.
Eileen is an unconventional story revolving around its offbeat, repressed protagonist. Set in 1960s, Eileen (Thomasin McKenzie) lives an uneventful life between the boys’ prison she works at and the home she shares with her alcoholic father. Even though Eileen is externally a plain, softspoken girl, the audience gets to know Eileen through her bodily eccentricities and jarring daydreams that hints at her repressed sexuality and unresolved psychological issues, most likely rooted in her unstable upbringing and general isolation. The opening scene features Eileen spying on a pair of lovers from her parked car, and stuffing snow down her pants while aroused, establishing her off-putting idiosyncrasies early on. Throughout the movie, Eileen’s daydreams are also acted out in jarring sequences, like when she imagines herself having sex with the security guards or shooting herself with her father’s gun.
Eileen’s rocky relationship with her alcoholic dad underlies her uneventful life, as she is forced to take care of him and withstand crude insults. With little to look forward to in her lackluster life, Eileen is immediately enamored by Rebecca Saint John (played by a blonde Anne Hathaway), a new psychologist at the boys’ prison. Rebecca is beautiful, elegant, and charismatic and after a few conversations and nights at the bar, earns Eileen’s devotion.
The film progresses in an unassuming manner; the first two-thirds of the film depicts Eileen’s daily life before an eventful Christmas Eve, which may be confusing to those who haven’t read the book. The novel is written in first-person and is a thorough character study of Eileen, told in hindsight by her older self. Moshfegh writes Eileen’s monologues with keen self-awareness and unfiltered details of her repressed thoughts and bodily activities, and through the carefree voice of Eileen’s old self, tells the story without any qualms about oversharing. Moshfegh doesn’t hold back as she describes things from Eileen’s obsession with her appearance, bordering on the grotesque as readers learn about things like Eileen’s eating disorder, laxative use, and bowel movements (thankfully not depicted in the film).
Without the detailed, morbidly funny monologues, it may be hard to understand the nuances and totality of Eileen’s peculiar character. While those who have read the book can fill in the gaps in Eileen’s character, without prose, the film fails to completely capture the essence of Eileen’s offputting grotesqueness, resentment, and repression. The film makes up for it through atmosphere, with various shots through mirrors, frames, and doorways, giving audiences a sense of mild claustrophobia, and invoking uncomfortable intimacy through close-ups of various characters. Completely indulged in the 60s, the film is muted and grainy in the daytime but slips into Baroque contrast and vibrant, monochromatic lighting, like red or a warm orange glow, during the night. Richard Reed Parry’s score is suspenseful and intense but abrupt like the plot, which ends in a tense encounter.
Many find the ending unusual, without conventional build-up or real climax. While the film is categorized as a thriller, the story is more of an offbeat bildungsroman or coming of age. Eileen’s formative years are contextualized in the first act, in all her eccentricities and mundanity, and the second act focuses on the progression of Eileen and Rebecca’s relationship, mostly sustained by Rebecca’s elegant charisma and Eileen’s easy attachment, which reveals her eccentricities. The third act plays out the anticlimactic, yet tense, catalyst for Eileen’s departure from her hometown, an event that breaks her out of her current lifestyle. In the novel, told from the perspective of an older, wiser Eileen, makes it clear that her life truly began after leaving her hometown. This outcome is only alluded to in the movie with Eileen hitchhiking to an undisclosed location, smiling while an anticipatory score plays.
Eileen doesn’t necessarily become a better person, find herself, or even grow, but conventional coming-of-age is not for everyone. With her peculiarities, the unusual progression of the movie makes sense. Though far from universal, Eileen’s characterization is human in ways that most of us would rather turn away from. She’s starved for attention yet passive in manner and lifestyle. However dissatisfied, she displays little agency or any inclinations towards goals, passions, or relationships. Eileen seems to not have the capacity to change her own life; it took meeting, loosely stated, the “right person”, and an intense night to leave the life she hates. In her own odd way, her life is changed by chance encounters and new people just like everyone else. Eileen is certainly not a hero, but she is extremely human.
The reception for Eileen is mixed, with some enjoying the morbid humor, dark atmosphere, or homoeroticism, while others are simply perplexed. Regardless, Eileen is a film to keep on your radar. In an interview with IndieWire, Moshfegh has plans to update her hit novel My Year of Rest and Relaxation, which is sure to garner attention given its cult-like fanbase.
Although there are no confirmed dates for the potential adaptation, My Year of Rest and Relaxation’s equally unconventional protagonist will charm in a similar manner, perhaps more so with its contemporaneous storyline. Moshfegh retains the same sardonically funny, weirdly specific, character-driven monologue in My Year of Rest and Relaxation, instead focusing on a privileged woman who plans on isolating herself from the rest of the world by abusing sleeping pills and minimally sustaining herself. In a post-quarantine world like ours, it would be unsurprising that this movie would resonate strongly, perhaps even to the point of pushing Moshfegh’s name outside of the literary world. Though Eileen’s release was quiet, with the involvement of actresses like Thomasin McKenzie and Anne Hathaway, My Year of Rest and Relaxation will likely boast equally exciting names in the project.
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