‘Eileen’ releases in New York and Los Angeles-based movie theaters Dec. 1 and everywhere Dec. 8.
Anne Hathaway plays a mysterious prison psychologist in her latest role.
On Tuesday, Neon released the trailer for Hathaway’s latest movie Eileen, which stars the Academy Award winner, 40, and Thomasin McKenzie (Jojo Rabbit, Last Night in Soho) as employees at a prison in 1960s Massachusetts who strike up an unusual friendship that eventually proves sinister.
The trailer shows McKenzie, 23, as her title character Eileen meets Rebecca (Hathaway), a platinum-blonde, cigarette-smoking psychologist who takes on something of a mentorship role toward the younger employee.
As the pair grow closer, Rebecca asks Eileen whether she can confide in her and promises to reveal a mysterious secret to the younger woman. Eileen’s own life appears to begin spiraling afterward, with her father (Shea Wigham) noting that his daughter seems different.
Eileen is shown kissing a character who appears to be a prison guard, embracing Rebecca herself and even holding a gun at the elder woman at one moment in the trailer. Rebecca, however, seems unaffected and even praises Eileen for her work with the weapon.
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“Set during a bitter 1964 Massachusetts winter, young secretary Eileen becomes enchanted by the glamorous new counselor at the prison where she works,” reads an official synopsis for the movie. “Their budding friendship takes a twisted turn when Rebecca reveals a dark secret — throwing Eileen onto a sinister path.”
Eileen made its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival in January. The film, adapted from the debut 2015 novel of the same name by author Otessa Moshfegh, is directed by William Oldroyd, whose 2016 movie Lady Macbeth made for one of Florence Pugh’s breakout roles.
The movie was written by Moshfegh and her husband Luke Goebel, who previously collaborated on last year’s Jennifer Lawrence-Brian Tyree Henry movie Causeway.
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Eileen is the second of two fall 2023 releases Hathaway stars in as a psychologist. She also appears in the new romantic drama She Came to Me alongside Peter Dinklage and Marisa Tomei.
“I saw Eileen at Sundance and then I saw [She Came to Me] at Berlin, and I thought, ‘Oh my god, I scream in two independent films this year,’ ” Hathaway told IndieWire in October while promoting the latter movie, which has made an interim agreement with SAG-AFTRA amid its ongoing strike.
Eileen releases in New York and Los Angeles-based movie theaters Dec. 1 and everywhere Dec. 8.