In the first trailer for the Sundance award-winner “Shirley,” Elisabeth Moss does what all the heroines in her character’s books do: “They go mad.”
Moss stars in “Shirley” as famed horror author Shirley Jackson, who wrote books such as “The Lottery” and “The Haunting of Hill House” (which was adapted into a widely popular limited series for Netflix), and she stars alongside a cast that includes Michael Stuhlbarg, Logan Lerman and Odessa Young. The sinister first look at the film gives a taste of Moss’ spitfire performance.
“Shirley, what are you writing now,” a party guest asks Jackson. She replies, “A little novella. I’m calling it ‘None of Your Goddamn Business.’”
In the loosely biographical film from director Josephine Decker (“Madeline’s Madeline”), Jackson is on the precipice of writing her masterpiece when the arrival of newlyweds upends her meticulous routine and heightens tensions in her already tempestuous relationship with her philandering husband. The middle-aged couple, prone to ruthless barbs and copious afternoon cocktails, begins to toy mercilessly with the naïve young couple at their door.
Sarah Gubbins wrote the screenplay based on the novel by Susan Scarf Merrell. Gubbins also produced with Christine Vachon, David Hinojosa, Sue Naegle, and Jeffrey Soros and Simon Horsman of the Los Angeles Media Fund, which financed the drama. Martin Scorsese is listed as an executive producer alongside Allison Rose Carter, Alisa Tager and Cher Hawrysh.
“Shirley” won the U.S. Dramatic Special Jury Award for Auteur Filmmaking at Sundance this past year, and Neon acquired it out of the festival in a low seven-figure deal. The distributor behind “Parasite” will release “Shirley” on June 5 “everywhere.”
Watch the first trailer for “Shirley” above.