A Panegyric for Massachusetts Freaks
A Panegyric for Massachusetts Freaks
by Karenna Umscheid
Out of two recently released, IFF (Independent Film Festival) Fall Focus-screened new releases set in Massachusetts, Eileen is definitely not the feel-good one. It's a psychosexual and almost romantic thriller following Eileen (Thomasin Mackenzie), an extremely horny prison employee, and her entanglement with the mysterious counselor Rebecca (Anne Hathaway) arrives. Eileen could not be more of a diametrical opposite to The Holdovers, and it would make for a crazy double feature! But that’s beside the point of this blog post. Eileen superbly marries loneliness and longing with a deeply strange and troubled protagonist, set in the bleak Massachusetts midwinter, making it a brilliant New England holiday classic, a cornerstone in dark female character study.
The film was adapted from Ottessa Moshfegh’s debut novel of the same name, with William Oldroyd (who previously directed Lady Macbeth) carrying her peculiarity and specific sense for disturbed women to the film medium. Moshfegh’s aptitude for portraying deeply troubled and disturbed women is superb, and the minute details of their strange characters are even more palpable on screen, making a thriller film about longing even more powerful in a theater.
There is already a special kind of energy at a preview screening; a whiff of pretentiousness in the air because after the screening there is the constant opportunity to brag about how lucky one is for being able to see an anticipated film so early! Eileen was the first night of IFF Boston Fall Focus, so the energy was even more electric. But what made the experience so special was how profoundly Massachusetts the film was. The audience burst into laughter at the line “Everyone’s angry. It’s Massachusetts.”
Eileen’s depiction of Massachusetts is heavy on the isolation, the seasonal depression of it all. Maybe it’s because I’m from the evergreen, quirky Pacific Northwest, but the harshness of Massachusetts has always made the place feel alien to me. The cold is unwelcoming, I never learned what a “Stop-n-Shop” is, and all in all, I am not from here and there is a fabric in the wintertime culture that I just do not understand. The snow is impenetrable. Eileen portrays Massachusetts wintertime as the loneliness it is (as opposed to the sense of family that The Holdovers envisions it as), the desperate scramble to get out of dodge, to break the cycle and abandon it completely.
Despite the stark, intense darkness the film delves into in the final third, a sense of hope resonates throughout. It persists despite the Massachusetts cold, and the unwelcoming and unfriendly nature embedded in every gust of wind. Eileen embraces the loneliness and terror of a New England winter, its harsh, nasty breezes as an escape route. Eileen carries so much more than most character studies, in its examination of the titular girl it also examines her loneliness and longing, through the scope of Massachusetts, a character in its own right. Eileen is far from a feel-good holiday movie, but it embodies the idea that there is still something hopeful in a lonely, dreary winter.
Eileen opens in select theaters on December 1, and everywhere on December 8, 2023.
Until next time,
Karenna
Photograph: Pinterest