40 MONTEREY COUNTY WEEKLY December 14-20, 2023 www.montereycountyweekly.com MOVIES Whenever a novel morphs into a film without losing its spirit or quality, it’s a small miracle. It makes one believe in a possibility of effective communication between genres. It helps if the screenwriter, director and producer are in love with the book, better yet if the author truly participates in the project. California transplant Ottessa Moshfegh published her novella Eileen in 2015, before conquering the literary market with her more famous novel My Year of Rest and Relaxation. In the case of Eileen, the movie that opened on Dec. 7, Moshfegh and her husband, Luke Goebel, were the co-writers of the script and co-producers of the film. Goebel is a co-director of the film, next to more experienced co-director and co-producer William Oldroyd. The movie stars Thomasin McKenzie as young and mousy Eileen, and Anne Hathaway as Rebecca St. John, a supposedly sophisticated psychologist, who teaches younger Eileen, an unassuming secretary, how to be interesting. They both work in a correctional facility for boys in a gray, cold New England. Rebecca has just arrived. Promoted as a thriller, Eileen is that only on a psychological level. Psychologically revelatory—in a way The Shining was in 1980, another example of a supreme novel (by Stephen King) to film (by Stanley Kubrick) translation—the movie is scary only in the way the human psyche is scary. But unlike Jack Torrance in The Shining, 24-year-old Eileen—sensitive, childish and love-craving—is not someone who the audience will be able to condemn easily. You won’t find ghosts or zombies on the screen. The small, gray town where Eileen lives is nightmarish enough. The inside of the buildings seems just as scary, filled with heavy sexist jokes and heavy smoke of everybody’s cigarettes. The story takes place in the 1960s; Eileen’s mother died and she lives with her emotionally abusive, alcoholic father, a former cop. Then things happen. Rebecca and Eileen become friends, with Rebecca clearly in charge, fun and demanding, and Eileen following her like someone in love. If Rebecca says “do it” would she jump into a fire? Could you imagine her with the knife? “Can you imagine me with a gun?” Eileen asks her father, and he suggests that he wouldn’t be surprised if she decided to shoot herself. The American melancholia that hit citizens after the 2008 global economic crisis resulted in a different, deeper approach in novels, music and film (excluding the Marvel series). For example, human grossness is allowed, people get naked, also psychologically. In Eileen, we are on the other side of irony; the society is rethinking itself. In the world of the story, people are living ghosts, overwhelmed with family tragedies. Eileen’s transformation is both positive and negative, but it certainly breaks the ceiling of her reality. One wonderful thing about the movie is that it has a reasonable length, 97 minutes—what a relief after Oppenheimer or Killers of the Flower Moon. The film played for just one week at Cinemark Century Monterey 13 at Del Monte Shopping Center; other local theaters didn’t even pick it up. Fortunately, the movie is coming soon to at least one streaming platform. Eileen • Directed by William Oldroyd • Starring Thomasin McKenzie and Anne Hathaway • Rated R • 97 min. • Available soon for streaming on Amazon Prime Human Drama Eileen, a brilliant book-to-film adaptation, is a thriller only on a psychological level. By Agata Pop˛eda Eileen’s transformation breaks the ceiling of her reality. Rebecca (Anne Hathaway, left) and Eileen (Thomasin McKenzie) dancing in a local bar in Eileen. It is the first of their adventures together. The movie is set in 1960s Massachusetts during a fierce winter. JEONG PARK
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MjAzNjQ1NQ==