Not a Shirley Jackson biopic, but...

There's a new film about Shirley Jackson, entitled Shirley. I'm very ignorant of modern cinema. There, I admitted it. Even in the realm of horror/supernatural movies, I don't know much. So I'll just put this here because it seems interesting:


'The story takes place sometimes after “The Lottery” has become the most controversial story ever published in The New Yorker (it first ran in 1948, giving Jackson a 59-year head start on “Cat Person”). A girl named Rose (Odessa Young) is reading the shockingly dark fable on a train as it cuts a path north through New England foliage; she holds the magazine close to her chest like a secret. It turns her on: Rose grabs her husband (Logan Lerman) by the hand and eagerly blooms for him in the nearest bathroom.'

Later, in that same review:

'Rose’s first encounter with Shirley is a scary one, as Moss — comfortably inhabiting all sorts of haggard makeup that she wears like a layer of cobwebs — embodies the author as an irritable grandma who’s been cooped up for long enough to haunt her own house. Shirley hasn’t been outside in over two months; Stanley insists that she isn’t well enough. He depends on her genius, but treats it like a disorder. Anything not to feel threatened. Wait until he reads “We Have Always Lived in the Castle.”'

This sounds very metafictional to me, and a good thing to. I'm not keen on biopics that simply tell the story of someone's life, because they never really do. Film is a lousy medium for that kind of thing, while books do it superbly. But a film that offers an insight into a real writer's creativity, that's another matter. So I look forward to seeing Shirley sometime, somewhere.