Otessa Moshfesgh’s debut 2015 novel about a titular girl who works in a boys’ juvenile detention facility has been adapted into a film starring Anne Hathaway and Thomasin McKenzie. In 1960s New England, Eileen Dunlop is working at a prison when a counselor arrives and shows her the ways of the femme fatale. Hathaway and McKenzie explore the reaches of obsession in the first trailer for Neon’s Eileen, releasing in theaters on December 1.

Eileen Trailer

The trailer doesn’t reveal much, but it does tease the darker nature secrets of the characters in the trailer through a stylish and psychological approach to the noir genre. A celluloid film aesthetic evokes the gritty fuzziness of Eileen’s drab world in 1960s Massachusetts when Rebecca (Anne Hathaway) arrives to introduce Eileen to a whole new side of herself. 

Based on the book of the same name by Otessa Moshfegh, the movie follows Eileen, a young woman working in a Boston prison while struggling with her own mental health issues. Dazzling Rebecca comes to work at the prison, forming a seductive and disastrous relationship between the two 60s-era women.

“I think I relate to the loneliness that she was feeling and the loneliness that everybody feels and that desire to be loved or feeling deserving of love,” McKenzie said in an interview with the Associated Press.

The film premiered at Sundance Film Festival to positive reviews earlier this year. The film’s visual style, unpredictable plot, and strong acting were praised.

“Rebecca to me represents someone who is undeniably brilliant, living in a moment in history where it’s quite dangerous to be a brilliant woman openly,” said Hathaway. “And what we were going for (with this character) was how would a brilliant woman both protect and empower herself in that time period, and so that’s where a lot of the glamour comes in.”