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Eileen starts off by looking like a Hitchcock film, partly as it’s set in the ’60s, but the period also means that we’re unlikely to hear the classic No.1 from Dexy’s Midnight Runners.
Portrayed by Thomasin McKenzie (The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies), Eileen Dunlop is a ditzy young woman, with a nasty, drunk dad (Shea Whigham– Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning Part One) who’s an ex-cop, and who tells us to get a life. Coincidentally, that’s what she also wants, but for now she works in a prison, where a nativity play goes spectacularly wrong and ends in a fight.
One of the inmates is Lee Polk (Sam Nivola), a murderer who killed is own Dad, yet he’s regularly visited by his mother (Marin Ireland). How that becomes apparent to the plot takes a while to bed-in. Meanwhile, after Rebecca (Anne Hathaway – The Witches (2020)) starts employment there, she and Eileen soon become friends, although there’s an odd scene in a bar where Rebecca takes Eileen’s name, without any particular reason or preamble, thus introducing Eileen to everyone as ‘Rebecca’.
On the plus side, Ms McKenzie turns in a great performance as the nerdy titular character, but on the downside, the plot drifts a lot before finally revealing its hand, and you won’t begin to predict how things will turn out in the third act.
Additionally, while there’s enough in this film to make it worth a watch, alas, it does feel like it’s waiting for something to happen in a psychological thriller vein, which – ultimately – never comes… Come on, Eileen!
Eileen is in cinemas now, and is available to pre-order on Blu-ray and DVD, with the release date of March 4th 2024.
Detailed specs:
Cert: 
Running time: 98 minutes
Release date: December 1st 2023
Studio: Mediumware
Aspect Ratio: 1.66:1 (ARRI ALEXA Mini)
Cinema: Odeon Trafford Centre
Rating: 6/10
Director: William Oldroyd
Producers: Stefanie Azpiazu, Anthony Bregman, Peter Cron, Luke Goebel, Bavand Karim, Ottessa Moshfegh, William Oldroyd
Screenplay: Luke Goebel, Ottessa Moshfegh
Novel: Ottessa Moshfegh
Music: Richard Reed Parry
Cast:
Eileen Dunlop: Thomasin McKenzie
Rebecca: Anne Hathaway
Jim Dunlop: Shea Whigham
Lee Polk: Sam Nivola
Mrs. Polk: Marin Ireland
Mrs. Murray: Siobhan Fallon
Mrs. Stevens: Tonye Patano
Intake Guard: William Hill
Randy: Owen Teague
Dr. Frye: Peter Von Berg
Buck Warren: Jefferson White
Joseph: Patrick Ryan Wood
Mary: Gavin Barfield
Demarco: Mason Pettograsso
Deluca: Spencer Barnes
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.