Adapted from Ottessa Moshfegh’s novel, “Eileen” boasts atmospheric eeriness and dazzling performances. (Courtesy of Twitter)

The dramatically drab world of Ottessa Moshfegh’s novel, “Eileen,” enters theaters in limited release on Dec. 1, and wide release on Dec. 8. Adapted from book to screen by Moshfegh herself, with the help of her husband and screenwriter Luke Goebel, and directed by William Oldroyd, this film transmits the wild imaginings of its titular character into film. A sinister psychological thriller, Moshfegh and Oldroyd take you on a journey where little happens and little is explained until the entire world falls apart. 

The movie follows protagonist Eileen Dunlop (Thomasin McKenzie), a 24-year-old woman, who works at the local boys’ prison and lives with her alcoholic father. Her days fall into a dreadfully monotonous pattern of working, sleeping and bickering with her father, with her only respite being her vivid imagination. The mysterious arrival of Rebecca (Anne Hathaway), a glamorous counselor, saves Eileen from her monotonous existence, but simultaneously threatens her with a fate much worse. 

Both McKenzie and Hathaway deliver masterful performances, embodying their respective characters right down to (in McKenzie’s case) their Massachusetts accents. The power in Hathaway’s casting extends beyond her performance, as she artfully imbues Rebecca’s glamorous shine with her own iconic status. While I recognized most of the actors in the film, I was shocked to see Hathaway among the cast. For an audience whose jaws might not immediately drop at Rebecca’s curled hair and Harvard diploma, they’ll certainly understand Eileen’s infatuation with a Hollywood icon. That being said, Hathaway also delivered a terrific performance. She was glamorous, flirty and never gave away what she was thinking. By the end of the film, her motivations still remain unclear. She becomes a figure that will stay in your head, long after the credits roll. 

The film’s strength lies in its apathy for reality. The film adds no special effects or music to pronounce the moments when Eileen is slipping into a fantasy. Instead, Oldroyd chooses to make the scene more and more ridiculous until it becomes clear to the audience that Eileen has been daydreaming — which is often followed by the scene snapping back to her passive reality. This leaves the audience perpetually questioning whether the scene is happening within the film’s reality or Eileen’s delusions. And Oldroyd does not always tell the audience which it is. The divide between reality and delusion fractures more and more as Eileen spends time with Rebecca, until delusion is finally shattered in the film’s act three twist. 

“Eileen” resembles Oldroyd’s earlier film, “Lady Macbeth,” in its mundane eeriness and central female figure, a young woman so desperate to escape her bland surroundings that she ultimately engages in the unthinkable. In “Lady Macbeth,” however, the suffocating silence drags on with little reprieve for the audience throughout the film. “Eileen,” on the other hand, breathes color, life and vivacity into the bland surroundings through Hathaway’s Rebecca. The latter explodes into this world of gray and beige with her bleached curls, red lipstick and figure-hugging suits. It’s hard for the audience — as well as Eileen — not to long for her presence, making her all the more seductive. 

Despite its bleak setting and costumes, this film is incredibly romantic. Not in the traditional sense in which two lovers become inextricably linked together through a series of increasingly meaningless sweet nothings, but in the sense that emotions as huge as mountains are delicately captured within the suffocating confines of Eileen’s situation and the hour-and-a-half-long run time. As I said at the beginning of this article, not that much happens in the film. The plot outline is short, simple and rather sparse. However, the characters are so fascinating, and their relationships are so tense that you will be on the edge of your seat throughout the film’s entirety. Go see this movie, and step foot into Eileen’s wild psyche.