The Reel Review
Elizabeth Moss stars in this psychological drama on Hulu, loosely based on the the life of acclaimed writer Shirley Jackson, author of “The Haunting of Hill House,” and “The Lottery.” In this unconventional fictional thriller, an assistant professor and his new wife briefly move in with Shirley and her philandering, college professor husband. Their presence gives the normally depressed, anxious and agoraphobic Shirley a new purpose – to awaken and exploit her new female housemate’s psychological demons as fodder for her new novel.
Fictionalized dramas like these are often dicey affairs, and this tale from director Josephine Decker (Madeline, Madeline) is no exception. But despite its questionable dramatic license, Decker does infuse a murky tension into the tale that even gives it the feel of one of Jackson’s novels. Jackson and her troll of a husband – superbly played by Michael Stuhlbarg (Call Me By Your Name) – prey on the eager-to-please newlyweds in a diabolical riff of Edward Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Adapted by playwright Sarah Gubbins from Susan Scarf Merrill’s 2014 novel, the film unfortunately feels trapped in a stage play format.
The result is a film that showcases some insanely good acting from Moss (The Handmaid’s Tale, Mad Men) and Odessa Young (The Daughter, Assassination Nation) as her tortured muse. Unfortunately the story itself is just too unfocused, serving more as an artsy, mildly interesting, deeply disturbing character portrait.
REEL FACTS
• In real life, Shirley Jackson WAS an agoraphobic but contrary to the film, Jackson and her husband actually had four children, lots of cats, and were known for having a boisterous and entertaining household.
• “Hangsaman,” the novel that Shirley is writing in the film, was actually published in 1951, more than a decade before the time period of the film.
• Shirley Jackson, who suffered from numerous health problems, was in the middle of writing her last novel, “Come Along With Me,” when she died of cardiac arrest in her sleep in 1965 at the age of 48. The unfinished story is that of a woman who cheerfully sells her house and belongings to her nosy, judgmental neighbors and drives away, after her husband dies under mysterious circumstances.
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