Shirley

"Shirley" benefits from a harrowing lead performance from Elisabeth Moss and an acute sense of storytelling, but I don't get all the hype surrounding the film. . In this drama inspired by a true story; Shirley Jackson, a famous horror writer, finds inspiration for her next book after she and her husband take in a young couple. . Elisabeth Moss is a force and you can't deny that fact, and I really love that "Shirley" is a film featuring strong female leads, a female director and writer. Although, I don't agree with all the positive response this film is receiving. It's not a bad film but it definitely requires a lot of your attention and I don't think it's all it's meant to be. "Shirley" is very much an intriguing story with great performances but the outcome isn't as great as you'd expect. . Follow @snobmedia for all reviews!

"Shirley" takes place soon after the publication of Jackson's piece of short fiction, "The Lottery", published in 1948. While both the novel and film adaptation of "Shirley" document aspects of the writer's life, the central narrative of Rose and Fred Nemser, a couple who moves into the writer's Bennington home, is completely fictional.

Elisabeth Moss who also was a producer stars as Shirley Jackson, rude, crude and inappropriate most times but successful as an author of horror stories. I can't say I really enjoyed this movie, Shirley and her husband were not very nice people. But Moss does a wonderful job in the role and it is good to know something about her life.

I watched it at home on DVD from my public library, my wife skipped.

I kept watching this movie to see if it would get any better. It didn't. I only gave it a five because for the most part the acting was good.

Just.... Strange. Kind of a weird train wreck to watch. Elisabeth Moss is a great actress and delivers as usual, but it's a little hard to get on board with the story, because you want the "good" characters to stand up for themselves and the "bad" characters are just pretty mean. Upon further recent (this is supposed to be based on the Haunting of Hill House author Shirley Jackson), there is no evidence that the real Shirley Jackson was so evil. This movie version of Shirley tears people down for sport. It leaves a bad taste in my life when famous figures are skewered in movies that promote themselves as biopics or "based on the life of" or "inspired by a true story." Skip this movie and read a Shirley Jackson novel instead!

Young married couple Rose (Odessa Young) and Fred Nemser (Logan Lerman) arrive at Bennington College to start his job. She is taken with famous author Shirley Jackson (Elisabeth Moss). Shirley's husband Stanley Hyman (Michael Stuhlbarg) hires the young couple to keep their home.

The film is able to capture the instability of the various relationships but I had trouble zeroing in on the stakes for most of the movie. It's not until Shirley tells Rose the truth that some stakes are injected. Before that, the two marriages have different levels of dysfunction but it only threatens to reach other levels of dysfunction. For me, the movie meanders for the first two thirds and then blows down the door in the last act. There are better ways to build up the tension and the drama in a smoother way.