"What happens to all lost girls? They go mad."
Shirley is a 2020 American biographical drama-cum-psychological thriller film, directed by Josephine Decker (Madeline's Madeline) and adapted by screenwriter Sarah Gubbins from the 2014 novel of the same name by Susan Scarf Merrell. It premiered at Sundance before being picked up by Hulu for wide distribution later in the year.
In 1949–50 Vermont, author Shirley Jackson (Elisabeth Moss) and her husband Stanley Hyman (Michael Stuhlbarg) take in a young couple, Rose (Odessa Young) and her aspiring academic husband Fred (Logan Lerman). As Shirley works on her new novel – which will become Hangsaman (1951) – she draws her inspiration from the real-life disappearance of a student at the University of Bennington... and her growing attraction to Rose.
For the unrelated 1849 novel by Charlotte Brontë, see here. And do not confuse with the 2024 film about Shirley Chisholm
, although they shared a composer Tamar-Kali.
This film provides examples of:
- Actor IS the Title Character: Elisabeth Moss IS Shirley.
- Ambiguously Gay: Shirley. Although she is married to a man (Stanley), they are shown to be desperately unhappy, never have sex, and never even show any physical interest in each other. While she is upset by Stanley's other lovers, it's implied that she feels humiliated more than anything, and she repeatedly describes her love for and interest in other women, while also becoming obsessed with, and having romantic fantasises about, Rose.
- Deliberate Values Dissonance:
- A lot of what Stanley does to Rose, especially kissing her, falls under sexual harassment and probably sexual assault. However, this film is set in the late 1940s, so Rose says nothing.
- The amount of drinking and smoking—including by/around a pregnant woman, and, later, around a newborn—was standard for the 1940s (although in real life, Stanley and Shirley were known to be prodigious smokers and drinkers even by 1940s standards).
- Flaw Exploitation: How Shirley and Stanley target Fred and Rose, to devastating effect.
- Framing the Guilty Party: Rose knows Stanley cheated on Shirley a lot, but she frames him for possibly cheating with the missing girl, Paula. Shirley, however, sees through this in a second.
- Hide Your Children: Shirley and Stanley had children by the time this film was set, but they are never shown onscreen. After Rose gives birth around three-quarters of the way through the film, unless she's carrying her child around (as she is in the climax), her baby will be somewhere but not commented on by anyone.
- Most Writers Are Writers: As in real life, both Stanley and Shirley are writers, as is Fred.
- Kick the Dog: Shirley reveals not only that Fred was cheating on Rose, but that he's probably been doing so since the beginning of the year.
- Kubrick Stare:
- Shirley has one in the final scene while Stanley is commenting on her book.
- Rose has a nearly identical one in the backseat as she and Fred drive away, implying she's turned into a version of Shirley.
- No Ending: It's never answered what's going to happen to Fred and Rose's marriage, only that Shirley and Stanley are still together (which is a Foregone Conclusion). Will they get divorced? Will Rose resign herself to living like Shirley?
- Pastiche: Of Shirley Jackson's own novels, with a lot of The Yellow Wallpaper in there. Two women are trapped in a house together like We Have Always Lived in the Castle. There's a lot of focus on cramped, interior spaces, similar to The Haunting of Hill House, as well as a Pseudo-Romantic Friendship that develops between Shirley and Rose, Rose is nearly Driven to Suicide on one of the rare scenes outside, and Shirley is portrayed as very agoraphobic. Meanwhile, Shirley convinces Rose to investigate the real-life disappearance that inspired Hangsaman (which she is also shown writing), and there are repeated scenes of Shirley dreaming that she is a witch and imagining various other religious rituals, which were also a major influence on The Lottery and several of Jackson's short stories.
- A recurring motif in several of Jackson's short stories (as well as a major scene in Hangsaman) is a moment in which the heroine stands on a bridge, contemplates jumping, but ultimately steps away. In the film, the bridge is a cliff, but the scene plays out in much the same way.
- Psycho Lesbian: Considering that she's married to a man, Shirley might be a Depraved Bisexual, but all her fantasies in the film are about women and she is portrayed as so mentally unwell that it isn't clear whether she's ever going to be coercive in real life towards Rose.
- Pyrrhic Victory: The book that Shirley writes. Stanley calls it "brilliant", but she's left emotionally distraught by it.Shirley: This one hurts more than the others.
- Sidelong Glance Biopic: A biopic of Shirley Jackson — told from the perspective of a newlywed woman who comes to stay with Shirley and her husband Stanley for a year while her husband is working with Stanley at the college.
- Wham Line: "There is no such thing as the Shakespeare Society." Confirming that Fred has been cheating on Rose for months, if not since the opening, and Shirley knew all along.
