Eileen

Directed by William Oldroyd, Eileen follows Thomasin McKenzie’s mousy title character as she develops a friendship with (and crush on) a pretty, brash new coworker named Rebecca Saint John (Anne Hathaway). Filmmaker Oldroyd, armed with Luke Goebel and Ottessa Moshfegh, delivers a slow-moving endeavor that benefits from its appealing 1960s atmosphere and solid lead performances, as, in terms of the latter, McKenzie and Hathaway offer up striking, memorable work that proves effective at sustaining the viewer’s interest and attention on a recurring, ongoing basis. And while the picture is often just a little too deliberate for its own good, Eileen benefits significantly from a welcome (and thoroughly unexpected) third-act shift into thriller territory that propels it through to a satisfying conclusion – with the end result an effective character study that’s perhaps not quite as consistently enthralling as Oldroyd has surely intended.

*** out of ****