【1981 Archives】

You don’t go into a Shirley Jackson biopic expecting a super fun time. An uncomfortable time981 Archives sure. An unsettling time, absolutely. But a blend of thrill, wit, and seduction delivered through an electric ensemble performance that makes you want to bone in a lecture hall? Not so much.

And yet, that's what director Josephine Decker'sShirleyhas in store for streamers this weekend.

Based on Susan Scarf Merrell’s novel of the same name, Shirley takes a fresh look at the legendary writer behind iconic horror stories like The Lottery, The Haunting of Hill House, and We Have Always Lived in the Castle. It's not a traditional biographical film; it takes substantial liberties to present fiction along with fact. But it is a rip-roaring watch worth every second of its runtime.

Elisabeth Moss leads as an uncannily well-acted Shirley Jackson, opposite Michael Stuhlbarg as her pompous literary critic-turned-professor husband Stanley Edgar Hyman. The two begin the film in a sort of marital cold war, with Stanley fighting to get his creatively blocked wife out of bed and back to work — and Shirley doing everything in her power to avoid being managed. With prickly jabs and moments of genuine affection aplenty, the duo could sustain a number of films (or stage plays) with their ever-changing, magnetic chemistry.

Logan Lerman and Odessa Young round out the cast as Fred and Rose Nemser, a young professor and his wife who come to stay with Stanley and Shirley “for a few days.” When Fred is given more duties as Stanley's teaching assistant and Rose is pressured into looking after the reclusive Shirley, the pair finds themselves permanent residents in the older couple's dysfunction.

A smooth blend of neo-noir, gothic fantasy, and Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, Shirley tethers its timeline to Jackson writing her second novel Hangsaman. Loosely inspired by the 1946 disappearance of Paula Jean Welden from Bennington College (coincidentally, the school where Hyman taught), the novel hints at the emergence of second-wave feminism through an examination of a lonely female protagonist on the brink of collapse.

In Decker's telling, Shirley and Rose assume the roles of such women on the outskirts attempting to understand what causes others like them to become lost — not just physically, but emotionally and psychologically. Deep conversations on the nightmarish expectations of female existence and exploratory fact-finding missions into Welden's disappearance form the basis for a complex allegiance that guides the remainder of the film.

As their philandering husbands enjoy the spoils of 1960s sexism, Rose and Shirley grow closer and closer. Lingering glances and mischievous inside jokes become the catalyst for a mind-boggling new chapter in Shirley's legacy that is at once immensely unflattering and smugly celebratory. Call it an ode to bad behavior — a monument to thinking and acting for yourself no matter the cost.

Still, for every pithy one-liner and snarky display of independence, there is an instance of profound vulnerability. Shirley weaves superb dramatic and comedic acting from all four of its leads into a dream-like journey befitting Jackson's masterful literary style. Scenes of wine flowing onto pristine couches and unlucky background characters getting verbally ripped to shreds are matched with drawn-out depictions of fear, isolation, and sadness. It creates an even balance of highs and lows that makes for a supremely watchable reflection on literary history.

Far from what we expected, Shirley is a fun journey into the mind of an artist and her perilous process that is as laugh-out-loud funny as it is and fittingly horrific. It won't be for everybody, but neither was its namesake.

Shirley is now streaming on Hulu.