NB: I have not read the book, and this review is based solely off the film.

This film is a psychological thriller about a Eileen (Thomasin McKenzie), a secretary at a prison, with a complicated home life, who becomes enamored with Rebecca (Anne Hathaway) a new counselor at the prison. The two inadvertently find themselves in a sticky situation that quickly escalates. But the movie ends so abruptly, thereby leaving the viewers completely unfulfilled. There are movies that are kind of bad, story wise, but are still entrancing to the viewer (Saltburn) and then there are stories like “Eileen”, which I got into expecting a captivating film noir, but was met with a boring under cooked narrative with blunt characters, other than Anne Hathaway who was captivating. It felt like she was in a different movie. While I love a 90 minutes film, “Eileen” needed more flesh on its bones, and we needed a more holistic approach in character development; because the whole movie hung on the titular character, who was not the least bit interesting until the very end.

The film spends a great deal of time trying to establish what kind of character Eileen is- a sexually frustrated “innocent” girl who is stuck in an unfulfilling job and miserable home life, having lost her mother, and now lives with a drunk, violent father. Eileen herself is an unreliable narrator, which would be an interesting device if the film stuck firmly to its genre and had a concrete story.

The story/plot is that Eileen meets Rebecca at work, and then the two become friendly, although this is within a short space of time. Eileen becomes infatuated with Rebecca and it is unclear whether Rebecca feels the same about her. Rebecca, a psychologist at the detention center, figures that Lee Polk (Sam Nilova), one of the inmates who was accused of killing his father had done so in self-defense, because the father was sexually abusive and his mother, Rita Polk (Marin Ireland) was complicit in the abuse. Because of the clear injustice at play, Rebecca kidnaps Rita Polk and tries to force a confession out of her. Seeing that her plan has gone too far, Rebecca calls Eileen to help her with the situation. Rebecca is established as a headstrong character, who beats up a man in the club because the man tries to interfere with her and Eileen dancing. It does not make sense, knowing what she knows about Eileen, why she would call Eileen to help her with this endeavor. It would have been helpful had Rebecca’s point of view been shown, as she was the principled party, who had the initial motivation to commit this crime/act of vengeance/justice.

Eileen is invited to what turns out to not be Rita Polk’s house, and she discovers that Rebecca had chained Rita and was trying to get her to confess. Eileen, in possession of a gun that had been confiscated from her father, and while high on her infatuation with Rebecca, ends up using the gun to kill Rita Polk. In the confusion and heat of the moment, the two agree to get rid of the body and meet up to run away together. The events of the last 20 minutes of the movie (I cannot call it the third act because this movie isn’t told in a 3 act structure, it’s kind of all over the place) happen too fast, without rhyme or reason, such that the end, which includes Eileen’s own distortions does not quite make any sense, as she attempts to discard the dead body after having seemingly been left by Rebecca, despite their promise to run away together.

Within “Eileen” is an interesting psychological thriller and a theme about women’s complicit nature in the face of their husbands abusing their children. Rita Polk claims that she ignored her husband sexually abusing her child because it lifted the burden off her, and he was in a better mood after abusing their child. The movie would be more fulfilling had they established the Polks’ story as the driving force for Eileen and Rebecca to act together in getting justice for Lee and other inmates who were forced into their actions due to abuse. The backstory they provided for Eileen did nothing to make us understand her actions, or even make her a compelling character as Rebecca was. If Rebecca has somehow influenced Eileen who did already show signs of being prone to violence and guided her through what would be her plan to get justice for juveniles who are wrongfully sentenced, this would be a better character arch for Eileen.

While I have seen reviews where people enjoyed the movie, I did not enjoy “Eileen” at all, despite the actors acting well, and Anne Hathaway doing a phenomenal job of enticing the viewers. The film still fell flat and did not have enough story to movie the average viewer who did not read the books.

Rating- 2 out of 5

Streaming on- Amazon Prime