Our film critic considers two literary adaptations, of Kristen Roupenian's story and Ottessa Moshfegh's novel, that arrive at very different outcomes.
The first in-person Sundance since 2020 is about to begin. Our critic has some early recommendations, including ‘The Eternal Memory’ and ‘Mami Wata.’Is this swerve meant to boost “Cat Person’s” commercial prospects in an industry where horror is one of the few genres that can still reliably turn a profit? Or to literalize the notion that, duh, relationships can be scary?
If so, a much more effective demonstration of that principle could be found in William Oldroyd’s nastily unpredictable “Eileen,” which premiered immediately before “Cat Person,” at the same venue, for reasons that I can only suspect gave the festival programmers a chuckle. For “Eileen” — although set in snowy 1964 Massachusetts and centered on the bond that forms between two women — is also very much about the seductiveness of appearances and the thrill and disappointment of new relationships.
Feelings of any kind, beyond everyday depression and anger, seem awfully scarce in the community where the sad-eyed, sexually frustrated Eileen lives with her hard-drinking lout of a father and works in a boys’ prison. It’s there that she strikes up a rapport with the prison’s new psychologist, Rebecca , whose impossible sophistication and glamour stand out in these dreary surroundings, and who upon arrival immediately fixes Eileen with a conspiratorial smile.
But speaking of unfair: Does “Eileen” benefit from the fact that I haven’t read the 2015 Ottessa Moshfegh novel on which it’s based, unlike “Cat Person,” which was adapted from a short and endlessly scrutinized story that I had read in advance? How much of this has to do with filmmaking, good or bad, and how much of it has to do with one’s own expectations?
It’s a fair question, though I suspect that even had I known every “Eileen” plot beat in advance, I would still have been held by Oldroyd’s directorial control , by the movie’s chilly New England atmosphere and faultless ’60s production design, and especially by Hathaway’s silky poise and McKenzie’s roiling mischief.
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