Originally Published June 5, 2020 at Cinema76.com
In my 5th grade english class, unprompted, my teacher put on a short film adaptation of Shirley Jackson’s short story “The Lottery.” When it ended, I remember the unexplainable wave of emotion that ran over me, having never seen something so chilling in my young life. As an adult, the story and short film have stuck with me and occasionally creep into my mind, seemingly unprompted, sending a shock through my system. It was not until I started watching Shirley last night that I heard the words that perfectly described these emotions I felt around the story all these years later, “thrillingly horrible.” These words also describe many aspects of the film itself. I have never seen a biopic quite like Shirley, which stars Elisabeth Moss as the writer.
Shirley is directed by Josephine Decker and it is an adaptation of the novel written by Susan Scarf Merrell in 2014. The story centers around the relationship of the famous horror writer Shirley Jackson and her husband Stanley Hyman (Michael Stuhlbarg) who is a professor and literary critic. Stanley opens up their home to a young man named Fred (Logan Lerman) who is working for Stanley at the university, and his wife Rose (Odessa Young). Unbeknownst to the young couple, they are scooped up into the world of chaos that surrounds their hosts. Shirley is agoraphobic, among other things, and Stanley is preoccupied with his many young female students. When they find out Rose is pregnant, Stanley takes the opportunity to guilt Rose into the role of housekeeper and helper to Shirley. Rose has trouble adjusting especially since she is not allowed to keep up with her studies and Shirley is a handful. However the two women bond over the novel Shirley is working on, a story about a missing girl from the college campus.
The film brilliantly uses sound design and imaginative visuals to create the feeling of a Shirley Jackson story. It elevates the horrors of everyday life, especially those of the two main women. Almost immediately the physical sensation of suffocating came over you as you watch these women forced into situations they do not want to be in, with mediocre men that dominate over them. There is a striking scene in the film where Shirley says she is a witch and does a tarot reading for Rose where all the cards she pulls are The Hanged Man. A card that, among other things, suspends us until we are prepared for what comes next, The Death card. These characters very much feel like they are in suspension, waiting for a transformation. For Rose, it’s waiting for the child to be born so she might shed her housewife role and for Shirley it’s finding the voice of the missing girl in her novel. We watch these two women deal with unhappiness in their roles and relationships and find ways to use each other to cope. At one point they even pray for Rose to have a boy because “the world is too cruel for girls.”
The themes of the film also seemed to emulate those in Jackson’s writing, one of them being the horrors of a kept woman. At the root, this film dealt with an all too familiar theme, our obsession with the “missing girl” or the “dead girl.” These girls and their stories are so vivid in our minds they feel like they are a part of us (I remember JonBenét Ramsey as vividly as I remember my childhood bedroom). We feel like we know these girls, that we could have been these girls, and so we make memorials for them in our minds. Stanley says several times that this sort of story is beneath Shirley and is not worth writing about but regardless she pushes through to figure out who this missing girl really was. As she says in the film “what happens to all lost girls, they go mad.”
The acting in this film is phenomenal. Odessa is wonderfully devastating as Rose, a woman who I empathized with within minutes of the film starting. Ultimately we see her go through the biggest transformation in the film, as Shirley molds her into one of her protagonists. However the true sights to behold in this film are Elisabeth Moss and Michael Stuhlbarg. Stuhlbarg was almost unrecognizable compared to his other roles in things like Boardwalk Empire and A Serious Man. He makes Stanley a deliciously horrible character who is so hateful and charismatic at the same time. Then you have Moss who started this year out with a bang in The Invisible Man and keeps it going with this complex character. Her interpretation of Shirley is so striking and starkly different from other roles I have seen her in. She is somehow terrifying, funny, sexy, and tragic all at the same time.
The chemistry between these two characters is truly the best part about this film. The relationship that Shirley and Stanley have is truly baffling. I oscillated between hating and loving their dynamic even within the same scene. Stanley is a gaslighting, cheating, overbearing character that is not able to help his wife and her mental health in any sort of healthy way. Together they seem to thrive on pushing people’s buttons and finding ways to manipulate others as if they were just pieces on a chess board. There is a price for genius and not only they, but those around them have to suffer because of it. However these two dysfunctional characters seem to have found some sort of order in the chaos that is their relationship and although at times it is horrifying that these two are together it is obvious that their codependency runs deep. Shirley relies on his criticism and Stanley relies on her brilliance so that it might rub off on him. The two actors have so much chemistry that their venomous exchanges are also sort of intoxicating.
With such strong performances some other aspects of the film pale in comparison, even though basically everything about it is wonderful. This film was such a breath of fresh air in a year that has been deprived of many new releases. The look and feel and score can all be described as hauntingly beautiful. Like a Jackson story you want to be in this world even though terrible things are happening to the characters. This is based on a novel about Jackson so I am left wondering how accurate a depiction this is. However, I like homework and now look forward to delving into more Jackson stories and information about her life. Much like my experience with “The Lottery” Shirley will certainly send a chill down my spine for years to come.
The Neon Banshee 