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Shirley Movie Review

Shirley is a 2020 biographical drama film directed by Josephine Decker and starring Elisabeth Moss and Michael Stuhlbarg. It’s a very forgettable flick.

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“Let’s pray for a boy.

The world is too cruel to girls“

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A famous horror writer finds inspiration for her next book after she and her husband take in a young couple. I haven’t read any Shirley Jackson novels, but I am clearly acquainted with her work and acclaimed status in the horror genre. With whom I am not particularly in the know, though, is the director, Josephine Decker.

Apparently, she makes trippy, weird and different indie flicks, thus her choice to make a biopic felt odd to many. Ultimately though, no matter how much she tried to make it unique, this is yet another standard and highly tedious biopic with only some fleeting instances of strong imagery that hold greater interest.

Elisabeth Moss is so good in the titular role, which is to be expected from her caliber. She had a great year in 2020 with this one and ‘The Invisible Man’. Also worth praise is Michael Stuhlbarg who’s always great, but constantly appearing in supporting roles, and I want a bigger role from him in the future. Others are all quite forgettable, both the personalities and the actors playing them.

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Shirley is well shot with a couple of quite interesting scenes. The movie’s more wild, more authentic imagery is the most memorable part in it, but most of those strange scenes felt weird for the sake of being weird. I learned a bit about the author from this movie, but not enough. The dialogue is good, but I wish the movie was brisker in pace and more engaging.

Shirley is an utterly forgettable biopic that has a couple of different, more unique sequences and it’s very well acted by both Elisabeth Moss and Michael Stuhlbarg, but others are all far from memorable plus the film’s pace is slow and it’s never a particularly engaging watch.