| Into The Snyder-Verse |
WILD ONE
EILEEN Lady Macbeth director William Oldroyd tackles another young woman acting out.
Perverse is a word that critics have applied to both of William Oldroyd’s feature films. His first, 2016’s Lady Macbeth – the movie that flung Florence Pugh to fame – depicted a young woman sold into marriage to an older man. Oppressed, suffocated and abused, she finds a way to fight back and gain a sense of freedom – also the basis for Oldroyd’s latest, Eileen.
Both films are period pieces based on novels; Eileen on Ottessa Moshfegh’s acclaimed 2015 debut of the same name.
We’re invited to empathise with the protagonists of both films, but each is complex with aspects we might condemn or dislike.
‘[Eileen] was just a character I thought was exceptional,’ Oldroyd tells Teasers. ‘Only afterwards did I realise that I’d made two films back-to-back about young women who act out, or whatever you want to call it. It wasn’t a conscious decision.’
‘Deranged’, ‘twisted’, and ‘disturbing’ are other words used to describe Eileen. ‘There are some moments in the film that feel a little odd or extreme or have strong flavour to them,’ says Oldroyd. ‘But I love seeing things a little incongruous or strange, as long as it doesn’t take you out of the movie.’
Eileen, played by Thomasin McKenzie, comes from a background of abuse. Her mother has recently died, her sister is estranged, and her retired chief-of-police father (Shea Whigham) is a drunk. ‘She works at a boy’s prison, she has no friends, she has no relationship,’ explains the director. ‘She’s sexually frustrated. But she seems to be invisible to absolutely everybody in the world. And into this world steps someone who’s essentially like an alien.’ That someone is Rebecca, played by Anne Hathaway (right, with McKenzie). ‘She’s so different to Eileen in every way. She’s Harvard-educated, she’s a psychotherapist, and she’s travelled, she’s beautiful, she’s flamboyant. She acts as a trigger for Eileen.’
‘There are moments in the film that feel a little odd or extreme’
WILLIAM OLDROYD
The film, set in New England in the 1960s, has mystery and thriller elements cut through with humour. ‘I don’t want people to think this is a miserable film. If anything, the style of it is quite dynamic and bold and funny,’ says Oldroyd.
Drawing comparisons to Todd Haynes’ 2015 film Carol, several influences stick out – Sirkian melodrama, film noir, Hitchcock, Fight Club, and Reservoir Dogs, a parallel made by Anne Hathaway herself. Oldroyd cites Richard Brooks’ 1967 adaptation of Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood. He wanted, he says, to borrow from cinematic traditions while keeping Eileen feeling relevant to today in order to avoid pastiche.
So why is Oldroyd drawn, albeit unconsciously, to women protagonists? He muses, ‘I think probably young women through history have had a harder time, have had to fight harder, which presents itself as better drama… the stakes are always higher for young women in these stories. [With] men, things go their way quite easily. There’s less to fight for.’
EILEEN OPENS IN CINEMAS ON 1 DECEMBER.