We must remember that when we watch “Eileen,” directed with moody, twisty desolation by William Oldroyd, Eileen may not be the most reliable of narrators. A lifetime of being invisible and put-upon will do that to a person. Look closer at Rebecca. Her hair is more “nest” than “style.” She provocatively smokes a cigarette as though she’s ready for her closeup, not standing in a stale-aired office surrounded by troubled teenage boys. She seems a little bit tricky. There’s an edge there. But to Eileen, it’s as though Marilyn Monroe herself has entered her workplace and, wonder of wonders, become her new friend, her first friend.
Based on Ottessa Moshfegh’s astonishing first novel of the same name (screen adaptation by Luke Goebel), “Eileen” spends time establishing Eileen’s life rhythm, so we understand how destabilizing it is when that rhythm is shattered. Moshfegh’s book is told in the first person, with Eileen narrating the events of December 1964 from 50 years on, but the film smartly does not include voiceover. A voiceover narration would try to “explain” Eileen, filling in the blanks. “Eileen” leaves the blanks intact, and so there is a mystery here we can’t quite grasp.
When Eileen’s father (an excellent Shea Whigham) says to her, “Get a life, Eileen. Get a clue,” he has no idea his submissive daughter will follow his advice in just a couple of days. And “getting a life/clue” won’t look the way he thinks. Because Eileen has spent her life in the background, a shadowy silent figure, “getting a life” will be abrupt and messy, a little scary, powered by the alarming sense that it’s been a long time coming.
Describing “Eileen” this way makes it sound like “Carrie” or, on the flip side, an inspirational tale of “female empowerment.” “Eileen” has more in common with those 1970s cinematic evocations of loneliness and dissociation (even down to the old-school credits font), films like “Three Women,” “Two-Lane Blacktop,” “Five Easy Pieces,” or the final shot in the otherwise madcap “Shampoo.” “Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore” is a possible precursor, although the mood of “Eileen” is wintry and disturbing, almost sociopathic. In the novel, Eileen notes the words on her pack of Pall Malls: “Per aspera ad astra,” meaning “through the thorns to the stars,” and observes, “That described my plight to a tee, I thought back then, though, of course, it didn’t.”