Surely, This CAN'T Be "Shirley!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

                             The other evening, I had a hankering to watch something.  I had heard much about the alleged biopic of Shirley Jackson, whose complete oeuvre I own, and  how wonderful Elizabeth  Moss  was in  the role.

                                I  was horribly disappointed.  Not with Moss, who made me  feel  she  was inhabiting Shirley Jackson.  Same  wiith Michael Stuhlbarg, who  did an exceptionally fine  job as Shirley's husband, and  close competitor, Stanley Edgar Hyman.  The tensions in their marriage,  when it is  just these actors on camera, are so  palpable, one feels  trapped with  them  within  their  domestic claustrophobia and  academic clutter.

                                 This last  part is  superbly conveyed by the set designer, art director, and  cinematography.  And  that is  where things end.

                                 For, instead of  really examining the roots of  Shirley Jackson's brilliance and  insecurity--her mother having been disappointed,  from birth,  that the child, was not a great beuaty,like herself!!!!!!!!!!!!--the film presents one with two  characters, Rose and  Fred Nesmer, played by nobodies Odessa Young and Logan Lerman.  Did they even exist? I doubt it!!!!!!!!!  They are so flagrantly heterosexual, it  is  disgusting.  And  he screws her from  behind on a  speeding train  caboose--and she is pregnant!!!!!!!!!    This sets up what  I  think the writers intended--less an examination of  Jackson's  persona, and more  an interpretation  of the Hymans' sexual  tensnions, contrasting with the  Nesmers, in  what  amounts  to, as  my David said, an  ersatz verion of  "Who's Afraid  Of  Virginia  Woolf?"

                                  The  story is set in 1951,  when Jackson was  working  on  the  book  that  would become  "Hangsaman," based on the 1946 real life disappearance,  still unsolved,  of Bennington College sophomore  Pauline Jean  Welden.  It completely misses  the fact  that  by this  time the Hymans already had the first of  their four children,  and  the  writers  use the  Nesmers to  expose Stanley's  infidelity and sexual  hypocrisy, through  Fred,who does the  same thing.  As  for Rose and  Shirley, this  film  would have one believe the two women had a  symbiotic, quasi-lesbian relationship, and that Shirley, writer  that  she was, used Rose as a muse to  pull  back layers suggesting what kind of  girl  Pauline might have been, as well  as what happened  to her.

                                    The  domestic and  literary aspects are handled superbly, and  draw  viewers  in.  But the overindulgence  in  sexual  ambiguity is  demeaning to  Jackson, who was many things, but not a lesbian.  And while  her  obesity and  agoraphobia are hinted at,  it is never made clear how these came about, leading  to  Jackson's early death,  at 48.

                                      It is almost like the film is trying to be both a biopic,  and  one of Jackson's  stories.   But the concept does not  work.

                                      Darlings,  if you have never read Shirley Jackson, it  probably won't make a difference,  though I  would  urge  those of  you who have not to do so,  and  then you will see  what I mean.   For those, like  myself, who are Jackson aficionados, if you have not seen it,  don't  bother.

                                       To paraphrase Shirley, "whatever walks in this film, should have walked  off camera!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

                                                 This is my favorite, darlings!!!!!!!!!!!!  Read it,  and it will become clear!!!!!!!!!!!!!