What fun to work in a jail! I know I’ve said before how unpaid internships are akin to slavery – and they are- but I think I’d take the non-paid internship over the prison internship. Yup. Not sure I’d even think twice. I’m not even sure it’s about the people so much as “when work feels like jail, life sucks. When work IS jail, it’s that much worse.”
Eileen Dunlop (Thomasin McKenzie) didn’t have a choice, I imagine. Her father (Shea Whigham) used to be chief of police back when he wasn’t a man-mess. It’s probable that he got her the job working at the local corrections facility for teenage boys. Small town Massachusetts was likely a crappy place to find work in the 1960s. As dad is now a fairly bed-ridden basket case who gets drunk and aims his gun at children for kicks, Eileen’s choices become very limited, indeed. There is no mom and putting dad in a home ain’t gonna happen.
When the attractive new psychologist, Rebecca (Anne Hathaway), shows up, we get a good idea of which way Eileen leans. While she’s had sex fantasies about one of the young cops in the institution, she is, quite clearly, far more taken with Rebecca. Rebecca, an older woman, responds in kind. Wow. It is hard imagining the context in which I think of Anne Hathaway as “old,” but here we are. 
Eileen is taken with Rebecca … and Rebecca, for whatever reason (perhaps gay, perhaps not a fan of any of the local prospects), responds. The two develop a relationship which is about as far as I can go without spoiling anything.
That last conclusion kinda bites because, and I’m not kidding here, NOTHING has happened in this film to this point. We have a setting. We have a relationship or two. We have some fantasies. Eileen fantasizes about having sex, killing her father, killing herself, but in reality, the girl seems too meek and shy to carry out anything she imagines. Hence, we the audience, have nothing.
OK, so why am I recommending this film? Well … Eileen does take a wicked turn. I cannot report the details. I cannot tell you the conclusion. I cannot tell you you’ll be satisfied with the conclusion. I wasn’t. But I thought the turn was worth the investment. I am extremely unsatisfied with how this review turned out. It’s like I can report the atmosphere, which, quite frankly -1960s New England blue collar town in winter- stunk, and can tell you all about Eileen, an overburdened and unassuming young woman who seems to have a hobby of fading into the background whenever possible. But I can’t really tell you anything else. Go try my Napoleon review. It’s better.
There once was a girl called Eileen
Who preferred never to be seen
But life kept a callin’
So she ended up fallin’
Onto the set of somebody else’s scene
Rated R, 97 Minutes
Director: William Oldroyd
Writer: Luke Goebel, Ottessa Moshfegh
Genre: Wait for it …
Type of being most likely to enjoy this film: The patient
Type of being least likely to enjoy this film: The unimpressed
