Best of Sundance 2023: top films from this year’s festival

Director: William OldroydCast: Thomasin McKenzie, Anne Hathaway, Shea Whigham, Marin Ireland, Owen Teague is a movie that will launch both endless debates and deep devotion. It’s bound to divide people, as evidenced by the stunned silence of its audience at the end of its Sundance premiere. Based on Ottessa Moshfegh’s acclaimed novel, the story starts quite conventionally. The eponymous character (Thomasin McKenzie), who works at a prison for adolescent boys in 1964 Massachusetts, becomes intrigued and consumed by a new counselor: Anne Hathaway, styled like Cate Blanchett in Carol, dripping with blonde perfection and glamour. No wonder Eileen looks at her like she’s craving candy. But there’s something sinister beyond this flawless surface.Directed by helmer William Oldroyd and adapted by Moshfegh and Luke Goebel, Eileen is a stylish and wild ride that never lets up from its first frame to its shocking finale. Oldroyd keeps the tension alive, cinematographer Ari Wegner fills the frame with beauty and color, and McKenzie, Hathaway, and Marin Ireland (in a smaller role as the mother of one of Hathaway’s patients) scorch the screen with psychologically complex performances. Expect to be enthralled. [Murtada Elfadl]