![]() ![]() ![]() This is where the film gets much of its magic, especially if you’re a fan of Jackson’s work, which at the very least means that you’ve read beyond the obligatory “The Lottery.”Īfter all, the film is not based on either of the biographies that have been written about Jackson-Ruth Franklin’s 2016 Shirley Jackson: A Rather Haunted Life being the definitive one-but a novel, a thriller by Susan Scarf Merrell, in which a young couple, Rose and Fred Nemser (who are completely fictitious), come to stay with Jackson and Hyman, and fall prey to their black magic, both figuratively and (possibly) literally. Though Elisabeth Moss’s portrayal of Jackson is spectacular and sometimes uncanny (they nail those slightly off-kilter glasses), and while some of the most famous and passed-around elements of Jackson’s biography are represented-she was a witch, didn’t you know, and her husband, Stanley Edgar Hyman (here evoked savagely by a smarmy, superior, and manipulative Michael Stuhlbarg) had semi-sanctioned affairs-this film is closer to a folded, complex form of fan fiction, bringing in elements from Jackson’s life as well as from her writing. ![]() This weekend saw the release of Josephine Decker’s Shirley, which is being described in many places as a biopic of genius American writer Shirley Jackson, but, well, absolutely is not. ![]()
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