Review: Shirley (2020)
Directed by Josephine Decker; screenplay by Sarah Gubbins, based on ‘Shirley’ by Susan Scarf Merrell; starring Elisabeth Moss, Michael Stuhlbarg and Odessa Young.
I remember when this came out, I think I had just finished reading The Haunting of Hill House, and it really stood out to me in how it was advertised. The Netflix show had already brought a sort of metatextual element to Shirley's book - to varying degrees of success - and I was curious about the writer herself, so this seemed right up my alley.
Anyway, the film itself is directed by Josephine Decker, and is an adaptation of the book by Susan Scarf Merrell of the same name. Both the film and novel it's based on are a fictionalised account of the period of time in which Shirley Jackson was writing Hangsaman. Rose Nemser (Odessa Young) moves into the Jackson household with her husband Fred (Logan Lerman) for what is intended to be a short stay - just while they look for a house and establish themselves in the community. Right away, Rose, still a student, has her needs and aspirations minimised by her fledgling-lecturer husband at the suggestion of his sponsor, Shirley's husband (Michael Stuhlbarg), himself a senior lecturer, and she is bound to the household to serve the ailing Shirley (Elisabeth Moss). As time goes on, though, Rose strikes up an often tumultuous but ultimately deeply understanding relationship with Shirley and Rose is driven into Shirley's almost-defensive form of perpetual madness.
The horror of the story comes in the form of the whirlwind array of fluctuating relationships at the centre of the drama. Shirley's husband, a man who malevolently insists he must be called Stanley and not professor or mister, is a chameleonic devil, at once warm and fuzzy and yet deeply manipulative, abusive and insecure. Fred on the other hand is a coward, hoping to climb the totem pole Stanley stands atop, and seemingly cares for nothing but his own state of mind, and it's so easy to see the former transforming into the latter with time and experience allowing them to be convinced of their own superiority. While Stanley feels threatened by Fred, though, he strings him along to lighten his load and constantly leaves him in the lurch. Stuhlbarg's ability to charm here never once ceased to convince me of Stanley's earnestness until it was quite clear what he was doing in any given moment - he's utterly hypnotic.
If the men's relationship is dizzying, then the women's is veritably maddening. Shirley is, contrary to her husband, icy and purposefully confrontational to all outward appearances, dredging up the darkest intrusive thoughts that come to her and laying them bare to spite those in her company. When we meet her, she entertains guests at a party, but at the very end of the scene a crack shows. She's doing her best to appease her husband, but she knows these people will leave her home soon. As soon as Rose enters the picture, her home is invaded and she must apprehend completely the threat that is posed. During the day, when the men have disappeared into their lectures on folklore and myths, Shirley starts to soften and draws closer to Rose, attempting to see and be seen by her. But as soon as the men return, the torrents of bitter torment return, concealing from Stanlet her closeness to her guest.
What I think I love about the film is that it does what rave reviewers describe the films of the likes of Christopher Nolan as doing: they don't take the audience for an idiot. Where Nolan's films seem often to use this philosophy to speed up the telling of some madcap caper he's dreamed up to justify another use of time-travel as a plot device (sorry), Decker uses it to skip immediately to an at times suffocating yet always enlightening discussion of the stereotype of the madwoman. Decker doesn't care if you're confused - that's the point. Rose is a new entrant to Shirley's world and typically she'd be our in, a vessel for the viewer to have things explained to them, but if anything our expectation of her being such just illustrates how impenetrable Shirley's mind is and how universal her pain is. Shirley doesn't know Rose and she doesn't know Paula, the missing student she wants to write about as the subject of her new novel, but she understands the origin of their pain and recognises it within herself.
In a world in which women are minimised and kept around simply as background decoration, the only sane thing for them to do is to go missing, or to go insane - if what that means is to stray from their role. To become difficult and a liability is to exist and finally be seen.
Really quite powerful and an uncomfortable viewing experience.
Watched on 14 April 2021.