Film Forum

Renowned horror writer Shirley Jackson (Moss) is on the precipice of writing her masterpiece when the arrival of newlyweds (Odessa Young & Logan Lerman) upends her meticulous routine and heightens tensions in her already tempestuous relationship with her philandering husband (Michael Stuhlbarg). The middle-aged couple, prone to ruthless barbs and copious afternoon cocktails, begins to toy mercilessly with the naïve young couple at their door.

WINNER – Special Jury Prize for Auteur Filmmaking
2020 Sundance Film Festival

USA    2019    107 MINS.    NEON

Reviews

“Reality-bending indie director Josephine Decker proves the perfect match for this playful psychological study of novelist Shirley Jackson, starring a wild-eyed Elisabeth Moss. This queer, hard-to-quantify psychological study isn’t a biopic so much as a séance — a quasi-occult attempt to invoke the spirit of such a singular author, who reinvented a genre before her death half a century ago, via a film that seeks to channel her unsettling style.”
– Peter Debruge, Variety

“Darkly compelling. A thrillingly perverse example of what happens when the shackles of biopic formula are cast aside.”
– Benjamin Lee, The Guardian