“Eileen” director explains why his movie changed a key story point from the book

William Oldroyd tells EW how he worked with author Ottessa Moshfegh to change a specific plot point in the new Anne Hathaway/Thomasin McKenzie thriller.

Warning: This article contains spoilers for Eileen.

Director William Oldroyd's new thriller Eileen ends with several bangs, from the clanging of Anne Hathaway's champagne bottle against the walls of a crusty suburban home to the deadly triggering of a gun held by Thomasin McKenzie's titular character.

But, it wasn't always Eileen — a jail secretary by day — who fired the weapon that killed another central figure in the disturbing story; screenwriter-author Ottessa Moshfegh's 2015 novel initially saw prison psychologist Rebecca Saint John (Hathaway) accidentally discharge the weapon in question.

Backing up a bit, the reason Eileen is in a position to kill is important; after both she and Rebecca bond at work over the mystery of a teenager's imprisonment for murdering his father, the latter lures her new companion to the boy's household on Christmas Day, coaxing Eileen there by telling her it's actually Rebecca's home. Once there, Eileen discovers that Rebecca has the teen's mother, Rita Polk, tied up in the basement, and the duo holds her at gunpoint, demanding to know why her son killed his father.

Rita eventually explains that she discovered her husband regularly raped their son, Lee, at night, though she never reported it because it reawakened a sexual passion between the adult couple — a revelation that, in the movie, prompts Eileen to shoot Rita.

"The reason Eileen pulls the trigger is it gives her more agency, rather than it being an accident," Oldroyd tells EW. "As someone who witnessed abuse in her family — why did her sister leave? Her sister, Joanie, is referenced, and we see what her dad [Shea Whigham] does to Eileen when he’s unconscious."

He explains that "everything Mrs. Polk has to say just triggers" a deep-seated response in Eileen, prompting her to fire the gun.

"Rebecca asked, ‘Why did you shoot her?’ and Eileen's response is, ‘I was upset,'" Oldroyd recalls. "I think you should treat that response with the full weight that’s behind it for Eileen."

Hathaway says the ending also holds thematic significance, with particular regard to the type of weapon both women use — plus, the location where Rita dies — at the end of the movie.

"I find the ending incredibly moving. I was kind of wrecked by it, because I think Rebecca was right, and I think there was a path forward, and I think the future was irrevocably altered because there was a gun," she says, referencing Rebecca's attempt to course-correct the tragic situation.
"As a result, Mrs. Polk never made it out of the basement, and she’s there, left behind in the 1960s. Everything we’ve grown on top of that, since then, that woman, that generation, was so trapped, and she never made it out. It’s a significant choice to me. She’s a human being, as terrible as what she did — she did a horrible thing, the worst thing I could imagine — but she wasn’t born that way."

Eileen is now playing in theaters nationwide.

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Read the original article on Entertainment Weekly.