{"id":1424226,"date":"2023-12-11T13:00:00","date_gmt":"2023-12-11T21:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.comingsoon.net\/?p=1424226"},"modified":"2023-12-10T10:54:15","modified_gmt":"2023-12-10T18:54:15","slug":"eileen-review-a-twisted-christmas-thriller","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.comingsoon.net\/movies\/reviews\/1424226-eileen-review-a-twisted-christmas-thriller","title":{"rendered":"Eileen Review: A Twisted Christmas Thriller"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Director William Oldroyd adapts an Ottessa Moshfegh novel into the latest Christmas psychological thriller. Eileen<\/a><\/strong> stars Thomasin McKenzie as Eileen Dunlop, a young woman working at a corrections facility for teenage boys. Her world changes when a new psychologist named Rebecca (Anne Hathaway) joins the staff and lets Eileen in on a dark secret. This movie is a fascinating experience. Although it’s rough around the edges and far from one of the better films of the year, it explores its themes quite well and creates an atmosphere unlike many movies of recent times.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Oldroyd beautifully immerses you in 1960s Massachusetts. He and cinematographer Ari Wegner craft a snowy texture that feels unique to this time period in the days leading up to Christmas. For all intents and purposes, Eileen is a Christmas movie, but not like what you would expect. The opening scene features our protagonist watching a couple making out in a car in the distance. Aroused, she takes snow and shoves it into her pants. From the get-go, she is established as a character with strong sexual urges with a need to take control of them and find a way to quench herself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The film wisely spends time not only on her work life, but her home life as well. We get a glimpse into her relationship with her paranoid, abusive father Jim (Shea Whigham). Jim has become a bit of a danger to other people in his neighborhood, and Eileen finds herself responsible of keeping him in check. Her home life, as tragic and uncomfortable as it is, has wonderful effects on the narrative. Eileen’s occasional fantasies of killing herself and her father persist throughout the film, shocking the audience as you wonder how dark this movie can possibly get. You wonder what the writers have up their sleeves and where they will push the titular character.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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