Eileen (2023): Ending Explained

In the chilling psychological thriller Eileen (2023), directed by William Oldroyd and based on Ottessa Moshfegh's novel, the story unfolds against the bleak backdrop of a 1964 Massachusetts winter. The film delves into the fractured psyche of its protagonist, Eileen Dunlop (Thomasin McKenzie), a young woman trapped in a cycle of emotional neglect and quiet desperation. As a secretary at a boys' correctional facility, Eileen navigates a world of isolation: shunned by colleagues, she harbors dark fantasies about a guard named Randy and even contemplates suicide or patricide amid her abusive home life with her widowed, alcoholic father, Jim (Shea Whigham), a former police chief whose paranoia poisons their every interaction.

The arrival of Rebecca Saint John (Anne Hathaway), the charismatic new prison psychologist, upends Eileen's stagnant existence. Drawn to Rebecca's glamour and intellectual allure, Eileen forms a intense, almost obsessive bond with her. This relationship takes a sinister pivot when Rebecca reveals her fixation on inmate Lee Polk, imprisoned for killing his abusive father. Suspecting deeper family horrors, Rebecca enlists Eileen in a dangerous scheme, pulling her from passive daydreams into active complicity. What begins as a twisted friendship evolves into a confrontation with buried traumas, forcing Eileen to confront the moral gray areas of loyalty, desire, and vengeance.

As Christmas Eve approaches, the women's alliance frays under the weight of Rebecca's radical plan, setting the stage for an ending that shatters expectations and leaves lingering questions about escape, betrayal, and self-reinvention.

What Happens in the Ending

The film's climax erupts in the Polk family basement, a claustrophobic space thick with tension and revelation. Rebecca has lured Eileen to what she believes is her own home for drinks, only to disclose that they are actually in the Polks' abandoned house. Earlier, Rebecca had confronted Lee's mother, Anne (Marin Ireland), about suspicions of paternal sexual abuse. The encounter turned violent: during a scuffle, they tumbled into the basement, where Rebecca overpowered and bound Anne, then drugged her to extract a confession. Eileen, now fully ensnared, retrieves her father's gun from the car to serve as a witness—and enforcer.

Under duress, Anne breaks, admitting her complicity in the abuse. She confesses to walking in on her husband assaulting Lee but chose inaction, even enabling it by preparing the boy with enemas and baths to appease her husband's desires, all while reveling in his renewed attention toward her. The raw horror of this admission hangs in the air, but before it can fully settle, Eileen—seized by a surge of agency—fires a single shot into Anne's shoulder. The women then drug Anne into unconsciousness, with Rebecca visibly rattled by Eileen's impulsive violence.

In a feverish haze of adrenaline and unrequited longing, Eileen proposes framing Jim for the shooting, using his gun as evidence, so they can flee together. She pours out her love for Rebecca, a vulnerable confession born of their charged intimacy. They load the limp Anne into Eileen's car trunk and part ways, agreeing to rendezvous at Eileen's house. But as dawn creeps in, Rebecca never arrives. Alone and resolute, Eileen drives to a remote forest, abandons the still-drugged Anne inside the idling car—its exhaust filling the vehicle with smoke—and walks away. Hitching a ride on the main road, Eileen hitches with a stranger, a faint smile playing on her lips as she leaves the town behind, stepping into an uncertain future.

The Meaning Behind the Ending

The ending of Eileen is a masterful tapestry of liberation laced with moral ambiguity, symbolizing the perilous cost of breaking free from cycles of abuse. Eileen's decision to leave Anne in the smoke-filled car serves as a metaphor for suffocation—not just literal, but the emotional asphyxiation of complicity and silence that has defined the characters' lives. The forest, a liminal space of isolation and rebirth in the film's wintry palette, underscores Eileen's transformation: from a woman who once fantasized about her own death to one who orchestrates another's potential demise. This act isn't portrayed as triumphant heroism but as a grim necessity, highlighting the film's exploration of how trauma begets trauma, and survival demands unflinching ruthlessness.

At its core, the ending interrogates the illusion of female solidarity in a patriarchal world. Rebecca's disappearance—never explained—mirrors the fleeting nature of Eileen's infatuation, suggesting that desire, when rooted in desperation, is as ephemeral as the snow blanketing Massachusetts. Eileen's smile as she hitches away evokes a quiet triumph, yet it's tinged with solitude, implying that true escape is solitary. This resolution peels back the layers of human psychology, revealing how moral complexity arises from powerlessness: Anne's enabling stems from her own victimhood, Rebecca's vigilantism from unchecked privilege, and Eileen's violence from repressed rage. It's a commentary on societal blind spots to domestic horrors, where the "sinners" are often the silenced.

Character Arcs and Resolution

Eileen's arc is the film's emotional spine, evolving from a spectral figure—haunted by her mother's suicide and her father's emotional tyranny—into a self-possessed survivor. Her journey peaks in the basement shooting, a pivotal moment where she seizes control, inverting her passive fantasies into decisive action. By the end, abandoning Anne and leaving town, Eileen sheds her old skin, but at what price? Her confession of love to Rebecca humanizes her vulnerability, yet Rebecca's absence forces a reckoning: Eileen's growth isn't dependent on external validation but forged in betrayal's fire. She emerges not redeemed, but redefined—free, perhaps, but forever marked by the blood on her hands.

Rebecca, by contrast, remains an enigmatic catalyst. Her glamorous facade cracks during the confrontation, exposing a zealot driven by a personal crusade against abuse, possibly echoing her own unspoken wounds. Her failure to appear at the rendezvous resolves her arc ambiguously: has she fled in fear of Eileen's volatility, or rejected the deepening entanglement? Anne's fate—left to the mercy of the car's fumes—caps her arc as the ultimate enabler, her confession a hollow catharsis that underscores the irreversible damage of inaction. Jim, though peripheral in the finale, lingers as the ghost of Eileen's origins; by not framing him as planned, she spares him, suggesting a subtle mercy amid her ascent.

Alternate Interpretations

The ending's deliberate ambiguities invite multiple lenses. One reading casts Eileen's abandonment of Anne as cold-blooded murder, a vengeful execution of justice outside the law, aligning with the film's subversive take on vigilante morality—did Anne deserve this for her enabling, or does it perpetuate the cycle of violence she helped foster? Alternatively, the smoke-filled car could symbolize a mercy killing, sparing Anne a lifetime of guilt, with Eileen's smile reflecting cathartic closure rather than malice.

Rebecca's vanishing adds another layer: perhaps she orchestrated the betrayal, using Eileen as a pawn in her experiment, only to discard her once the deed was done—a cynical view of their bond as manipulative power play. Or, more sympathetically, Rebecca might have been overwhelmed by Eileen's confession and violence, choosing self-preservation over partnership, highlighting the fragility of alliances built on shared darkness. These interpretations hinge on the film's restraint, leaving viewers to ponder whether Eileen's escape is empowerment or delusion, and if her new beginning is truly untainted.

Themes and Symbolism

Eileen weaves broader themes of repression and rebellion through its ending, subverting the holiday film's warmth with a Christmas Eve steeped in betrayal. The gun, inherited from Jim, symbolizes patriarchal legacy—Eileen wields it not to destroy her father but to sever ties to her past, turning a tool of control into one of autonomy. Snow and smoke recur as motifs of obfuscation: the winter buries secrets, much like Anne's denial buried abuse, while the car's exhaust veils Eileen's crime, allowing her rebirth.

The film critiques societal commentary on gender and abuse, portraying how women navigate (or fail to) male-dominated violence. Eileen's arc reinforces themes of queer desire as both salvation and snare—her kiss with Rebecca a fleeting spark against the cold. Ultimately, the ending subverts redemption tropes: there's no tidy justice, only the messy truth that moral complexity demands uncomfortable choices, echoing human truths about how survival often blurs the line between victim and perpetrator.

Final Thoughts

The ending of Eileen lingers like the chill of its Massachusetts setting—unsettling, profound, and resistant to easy answers. It works brilliantly because it trusts the audience to grapple with its moral ambiguities, elevating a taut thriller into a contemplative meditation on trauma's long shadow. Eileen's smile isn't a Hollywood victory; it's a quiet, hard-won defiance that feels authentic to the film's psychological depth. For viewers dissecting this twisty tale, it rewards rewatches, revealing how one woman's escape illuminates the prisons we all build from silence and complicity. If Eileen leaves you pondering the cost of freedom, that's precisely its power.