Shirley

The move to Vermont promises a new life for Rose and Fred. Fred takes up a position with the renowned professor and bon vivant Stanley Hyman. The young couple is allowed to stay at his house until they find their feet – on one condition: that Rose helps Stanley's wife with the household. Stanley's wife is Shirley Jackson, the perpetually unkempt, cigarette-toting and eccentric horror writer, who has been scared to venture out of the house for weeks. After some initial hostility, a mutual fascination begins to form between the two women, and Shirley develops an idea for a novel about a missing woman. The boundaries between reality and fiction become increasingly blurred behind the house’s heavy curtains. With its restless, intimate camera work and sharp dialogue, SHIRLEY captures the dark, torn inner lives of its female characters, who struggle with the small-mindedness of the 1950s and themselves.