Editor's note: The following contains spoilers for Eileen.

The Big Picture

• Eileen is a disturbing film about mistreated women seeking freedom.
• The mysterious thriller keeps viewers on edge until a shocking climax.
• The ambiguous ending raises questions about reality and character development.

Based on the novel of the same name by Ottessa Moshfegh, who also co-wrote the script, Eileen is an effectively disturbing film, a powerful look at the lengths to which mistreated women will go to achieve freedom, justice, and happiness, featuring electrifying performances from stars Thomasin McKenzie and Anne Hathaway. Eileen is a mysterious thriller that keeps the viewer at the edge of their seat, until a truly wild climax that ends shockingly and ambiguously. So where does Eileen leave the title character Eileen Dunlop (McKenzie) and the rest of its cast?

What is 'Eileen' About?

The film takes place in 1960s Massachusetts, where Eileen is living a lonely, sad existence. She endures harassment and bullying from co-workers at her job at a correctional facility for young men and verbal abuse from her alcoholic father, Jim (Shea Whigham), who constantly compares her unfavorably to her deceased mother and unseen older sister. When the glamorous Rebecca Saint John (Hathaway) replaces the prison’s psychologist, Eileen is immediately enamored with the older woman. Rebecca befriends Eileen, further dazzling her with her confident, powerful attitude and unique worldview.

Rebecca is determined to make the prison more humane and take a more active approach to helping inmates with mental health struggles. She becomes especially passionate about helping Lee Polk (Sam Nivola), a young man who hacked his father to death, for whom Eileen seems to harbor a romantic and/or sexual fixation. Rebecca is convinced that the horrifically violent nature of the murder suggests that the father must have harmed Lee in a significant way. One day, Eileen observes as Rebecca moderates a visit between Lee and his mother, Rita (Marin Ireland), which ends with Rita rushing out of the prison in tears.

Eileen and Rebecca at the Polk Residence

On Christmas Eve, Eileen is delighted to accept an invitation from Rebecca to spend the holiday with her at her home. They have an odd dinner, with Rebecca serving Eileen pickles and cheese, which is all she has in her kitchen. Despite this, Eileen is clearly thrilled to be there. After they continue to bond over drinks for a little while, however, Rebecca shocks Eileen (and viewers who didn’t read the book) by revealing that the house isn’t hers: it’s the Polks’ and that she is holding Rita captive in the basement. Eileen is at first reasonably frightened and goes to leave, but Rebecca stops her.

Rebecca explains that she had come to the house to confront Rita with her suspicions that Lee’s father abused him, which she believed Rita may have been involved in as well. Their conversation devolved into a physical fight, during which they both fell into the basement, incapacitating Rita, who Rebecca then tied up and drugged. Rebecca asks Eileen to stay and serve as a witness while she forces Rita to confess to her complicity. In addition to being frightened, Eileen is initially hurt that Rebecca’s invitation hadn’t been a genuine act of affection. But when Rebecca pleads with her that she needs the support of a friend, Eileen’s burgeoning romantic and obsessive feelings for her—as well as her own darker impulses—win out, and she agrees to help, even getting her father’s gun out of her car to threaten Rita with.

How Does 'Eileen' End?

The pair descend into the basement, where Rebecca pressures Rita to confess while Eileen holds the gun pointed at her. Rita is at first defiant, rebuking them and threatening them with the consequences of abducting her. But after Eileen makes a surprisingly convincing threat to kill her, she eventually breaks down. She tearfully admits that her husband sexually abused Lee over a long period and that she knew he was doing so. Initially, she had been so horrified that she couldn’t make herself admit the abuse was real by reporting it, but she also admitted that she continued to keep quiet because she began to believe that it was improving her and her husband’s marriage. As she finishes the story, Eileen suddenly shoots her in the chest, with the disturbingly simple justification that, “I got upset.”

Despite having been the one to initiate the abduction and interrogation, Rebecca is horrified and begins making meager attempts at giving Rita medical attention. But Eileen urges her to stop, believing that Rita deserves to die, and telling Rebecca she loves her. She says that they could get away with killing her by framing her father and run away to live together. Jim has repeatedly been in trouble with the police for drunkenly brandishing his gun and pointing it at neighbors, so much so that an officer had Eileen take custody of the gun. Jim also worked on Lee’s case when he was on the police force, making him the perfect patsy. Rebecca agrees, and they force-feed Rita tranquilizers to knock her out.

Eileen and Rebecca put Rita in Eileen’s car and agree to meet at her house, where they will stage a scene to make Jim look guilty. But Rebecca never comes. Eileen waits for her until early in the morning, when she drives the car deep into the woods and leaves Rita in it with the windows up so the smoky exhaust the old car constantly emits will kill her. Eileen then walks back to the road and hitches a ride on a passing truck that is driving out of town, likely to fulfill her long-standing dream of going to New York City.

What Does the Ending of 'Eileen' Mean for the Characters?

The ending, which excludes some final scenes from the novel set significantly later, maintains and increases the mysterious ambiguity that makes Eileen, both the character and the film, so interesting, and raises many new questions. In addition to her surprising initial reaction to the shooting, Rebecca not meeting Eileen makes the viewers reconsider a lot of what they thought they knew about the character. Some viewers may even consider the idea that Rebecca wasn’t actually a real person, but a figment of Eileen’s imagination, an interpretation of the novel Moshfegh seems to support, having told The Guardian, “Rebecca was somebody else’s character, a character from a movie or book read long ago. She is an imaginary person in another sense too in that Eileen has imagined her.” Even if one thinks she is real, her reaction to the shooting and choosing not to join Eileen show that she is arguably more moral and less disturbed than Eileen, when the earlier parts of the film led one to believe the opposite.

Eileen’s final expression is also thought-provoking. In the final scene, as the truck drives, she smiles to herself, leaving the viewer to wonder why she would do so. While it makes sense that she would be relieved to get away with the murder, and likely also happy to be free of her father and her dreary hometown, she is once again as alone as she was before Rebecca came into her life. This could be argued to lend further support to the idea of Rebecca being imaginary. If that’s the case, perhaps Eileen’s mind subconsciously created Rebecca to develop her confidence and agency. Now that she believes she has done so by killing Rita and leaving, Rebecca is no longer needed.

From this point of view, the smile would be seen as evidence of Eileen realizing she has become more powerful and taken control of her life, no longer needing her imaginary alter-ego. If Rebecca was real, the smile is a little more confounding, as one would assume that Eileen would still be fairly hurt that the woman she loved didn’t come with her. If she is smiling despite that, the film’s argument may be that her freeing herself from her oppressive life was more important than her starting a romance with Rebecca.McKenzie’s performance throughout the film is excellent, but her work is especially striking in this scene, as she delivers the smile in a way that allows different viewers to read it as suggesting many different meanings.

Eileen is now available to watch on Hulu in the U.S.

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