EILEEN (2023): Misunderstood Brilliance | in-depth film review

it has come to my attention that the reception of the movie Eileen that came out I think in December last year has been less than favorable but I don't think people are looking at it in the right way and I'm going to tell you why funnily enough though a particularly scathing review by the guardian deemed the movie A peculiar misfire of a psycho Noir that is ultimately a unsatisfying and anti-climatic odity Critics on the whole rated the film quite highly it is rather the non- critic audience that really did not like the movie extremely disappointing after watching the trailers very boring drags on mostly about elen's existential crisis and whether or not she is mad so dull why the script and the plot is incomplete this could have been much better where is the rest of the movie way paid 1999 on Prime to rent what a waste definitely not a psychological Thriller as advertised the only action whatsoever happens in the last 10 minutes and even that is a supreme let down at the end I felt like I was watching a movie from the ' 70s 1960s actually and what if I say that's kind of the point in fact what if I told you that it were wears all of its Inspirations on its sleeve both cinematic but particularly the literary ones and that that is actually a good thing it's 1964 and in an isolated insignificant town in Massachusetts lives elene played by Thomasson McKenzie a 24 year-old woman working in a juvenile prison as a filing clerk with her mother dead and her father a mean alcoholic who she looks after she spends her painfully Bland existence in Daydreams which are either sexually explicit or otherwise intensely violent when Rebecca played by Anne Hathaway arrives in town as the juvenile prison's new psychologist elene becomes enraptured by her liberal and Cosmopolitan attitude but their budding friendship is tested by a shocking Revelation adapted from the novel of the same name by the author Essa mosag and Luke Geral the film proudly envelops itself into the time and genre it plays homage to the cinematography handled expertly by Arie Wagner who has previously done very well in producing an authentic yet interesting and Polished period look in lady MCB Beth and the power of the dog has that crisp slightly faded nostalgic tone of 60 Cinema which grounds the film authentically in the era elene is tonally if not thematically quite quiet and though has instances of violence and explicit tension the Thriller is psychological without a doubt elene is mousy and shy and without any internal narration the audience is at a distance and has to read elen's action and expressions to glean an understanding of her mental state much like a detective observing Clues Dean's mental state is not an altogether Cold Case however McKenzie who has previously been in last night in SoHo another great styed Thriller strangely with a similarly named main character Eloise acts the character's social awkwardness and offbeat skittishness very naturally there may be a reason to this according to McKenzie I'm a bit awkward a bit clumsy a bit erratic she admits in an interview with ID and maybe it is due to this the the article supposes that draws her to Outcast characters hovering at the fringes never quite fitting in equally or oppositely depending on how you look at it and Hathaway is effortlessly glamorous and a convincingly alluring subject in a film centering around a character's Obsession that quickly develops for a stranger much like another film we might happen to know but other videos and reviews are likely to talk about the great acting in elene and it's one of the only aspects of the film that is generally praised by audience and critics alike so let me instead focus on the film's form and Source material and how it influences the film's contentious Direction and vision to truly understand the problem audiences seem to have with the film firstly I have to mention the great commitment the film has in referencing film Noir this referencing doesn't come out of nowhere Illusions to film Noir existed first in the novel which the film was adapted from as Esther Zuckerman considers in her Vanity Fair article about the movie there was always a cinematic conceit to elen the novel is narrated by an older version of the protagonist someone who loves Noir and mimics that genre in the way she tells the story on screen you can see how those homages become literal from the very first title card which invokes color Noir like 195 53's Niagara and personally if we were to obscure the lack of color I think elen greatly parallels the French psychological horror Thriller Diablo for one both Center a female homoerotic friendship characterized with a torrid sense of folly adure ironically where the Cinematic genre influences the form of the novel so too does the genre of literature greatly influence the format of the film and I suspect that this is at the heart of people's poor reaction to the film especially its ending but I'm going to argue that this is precisely what gives the movie its unique character Here's a thought that came up when I finished watching this film we describe a book as cinematic when the visuals and actions in the book have a certain Clarity and impact that you would expect to find in a film so what would a literary film look like one could suppose that it may have more dialogue or more literary language than a typical film language that doesn't quite sound like natural speech but is more curated and composed it could have more techniques typically used in literature like verbalized inner monologues or following more than two protagonists and having them all have equal importance to the narrative it may even have a consistent narrator if so I would say that elen is not a literary film at all the main protagonist is very much the main protag Agonist and she says surprisingly little the language in the film is generally naturalistic and almost reserved certainly not overly Rose or extensive and the use of specific colors as a way of Storytelling is clearly more comfortably expressed in film than in literary media notice the blandness of elen's surroundings at the start of the film being completely juxtaposed by Rebecca's blonde hair and fashionable Red Clothing also pay attention to how alen outfits go from beige fishness to a red dress to finally a black glamorous fur coat this is clearly cinematic 101 in using Color to indicate character progression altogether not what you might expect from a screenplay written by two individuals who are predominantly authors but in other subtler ways the film wears its adaption from a literary Source on its sleeve there are characters that have little to do in the narrative except to spur the main character's imagination or reaction the guard for example has little more importance than to be the conduit of alen's sexual fantasies and Lee pulk one of the juvenile prisoners is more character to be perceived by the characters around him than for him to take any part in The Narrative himself drama comes from the Greek word to do or act and this aspect of characterization clearly goes against the Cinematic idea of having all your characters being innately dramatic this lack of action is a criticism that the audience reviews complained about arguing that the start of the film dragged because of it the film is slow at the start but I wouldn't say it dragged what I would say is that especially for the first quarter of the film the film is less defined by elen's actions than by her activity Alexander mckendrick American Born director of films including the film Noir drama sweet smell of success and teacher of film making and author of this book describes the difference between action and activity according to mckendrick activity is when someone is said to be in the continuous process of doing something dealing with ongoing situations that have no beginning middle or end action on the other hand is inherently dramatic and makes up the entire completed activity implying that the thing being done May produce an effect that so Alters the present circumstances that it in turn produces a new result thus provoking another often contrary counteraction looking at it in this way the audience is introduced to elene by the way that she lives her life which before Rebecca comes into town does not give any indication that it will change nor are there any scenes indicating elen's intention to change her life though many scenes Express her General dissatisfaction in living it the ending of lean is where I argue it is the most literary and so it makes sense that it is where the film is most controversial the end is quite open ended and without spoiling the end the final Twist of the film is not explicitly explained but rather expressed through implication and the lack of action when I realized what had happened I felt like the reveal was done really well however in general audiences are used to clearcut endings at the end of a three-part cinematic structure but elen challenges those preconceptions of cinematic convention with a clear amount of Glee though the world is coming out of a 10-year Marvel Bender The Cinematic consciousness of the audience is hung over still conditioned to expect their movies to be fast-paced full of action and with typical cinematic format it is understandable that a film that describes itself as a psychological Thriller would be expected to be as as loud Brash or generally as obvious with its tension as you would find in films like gong girl or Nightcrawler both great films by the way so when the film transgresses those expectations it's understandable that some of the audience might rankle elen is not supposed to be like those films just as the novel draws heavily on film Noir to inform the narrative the film draws heavily on the literary genre to influence the film's Cinematic form and I appreciate that effort to push and play with the form of Cinema is the movie perfect no it is flawed in places especially in the pacing I didn't think that it dragged in the first quarter of the film rather I believe that it is the second quarter that bit after Rebecca comes to town but before the climax that slightly floundered a little to keep up the tension which had been building up but I think overall Ro that elen approaches a cinema in a unique way and I think that it is precisely the reasons why people generally dislike the film that gives elene its unique if underappreciated [Applause] [Music] brilliance la

Channel: Up in the Air ft. Zürich

Views: 4,745

Keywords: films, cinema, eileen movie, video essay, reviews, movies

Id: QsHPfPCDZ_o

Length: 12min 36sec (756 seconds)

Published: Fri Jan 19 2024