Synopsis
A famous horror writer finds inspiration for her next book after she and her husband take in a young couple.
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Cast
- Elisabeth MossShirley Jackson
- Odessa YoungRose Nemser / Paula
- Michael StuhlbargStanley Hyman
- Logan LermanFred Nemser
- Victoria PedrettiKatherine
- Robert WuhlRandy Fisher
- Paul O'BrienDean
- Orlagh CassidyCaroline
- Bisserat TseggaiPeggy
- Allen McCulloughNorman
Recommendations
- 91
The Playlist
One of the masterstrokes of Sarah Gubbins’s screenplay is how deftly she underscores the differences in the perception and presentation of the sicknesses within this marriage. - 90
The Hollywood Reporter
Gubbins’ script is tart, verbally lively and neatly constructed, while director Josephine Decker, in her first outing since her well-received 2018 Sundance entry Madeline’s Madeline, keeps a very tight rein on things, adroitly mixing in tension, innuendo and dark humor to keep the drama at a satisfying low boil most of the way. - 90
Slashfilm
This is a fictional biography, and yet every moment rings true. - 85
TheWrap
Decker is a superbly imaginative director, which leaves one wishing her creative powers had pushed the film even further away from the constraints of reality. But that’s a downside that comes with working from material written by another artist. - 83
IndieWire
Decker’s characteristically sawtoothed and delirious new film is set in the same latent space between fact and fantasy — a story and its telling — where she located all of her previous work. - 83
The Film Stage
Where Decker’s film excels is in the innovative perspective brought to each moment and the talented ensemble that gets to grab ahold of the material. Elisabeth Moss and Michael Stuhlbarg are having so much scenery-chewing fun they practically end up swallowing the single location. - 83
Entertainment Weekly
The plot, admittedly, is scattered; this is par for the course for Decker, but in a movie with more conventional bones, the shagginess sticks out. Shirley gorgeously invokes its subject’s style, however, via a disarmingly off-kilter score; handheld camerawork that gets intimate with characters’ psyches; and, most strikingly, a series of unforgettable images that intensify this study of female awakening and decay. - 80
The Guardian
There’s a lot here to digest, a bitter cocktail with many confounding flavours and its abrasiveness will prove tough-going for some, especially those in search of a more polite and familiarly structured literary biopic. But for those willing to sink into the depths with Shirley, it’s a delicious journey down.
