SHIRLEY | FAMILY MOVIE REVIEW INFORMATION FOR PARENTS AND KIDS

"SHIRLEY"
(2020) (Elisabeth Moss, Odessa Young) (R)

QUICK TAKE:: Drama: A young married couple agrees to stay with a professor and his mentally ill writer wife who eventually bonds with the younger woman.

PLOT:

It's the mid 20th century and Rose (ODESSA YOUNG) and Fred Nemser (LOGAN LERMAN) have arrived in a college town in Vermont where Fred is to work as the teaching assistant to professor Stanley Hyman (MICHAEL STUHLBARG) at an all-female college. While the young women adore him, his wife, novelist Shirley Jackson (ELISABETH MOSS), is the true star of the family, although her mental illness and agoraphobia have left her housebound for some time.

That and her creative block have grown both worrisome and tiresome to Stanley who offers the Nemsers free room and board at the house if Rose will help cook and clean and Fred will help lessen some of Stanley's workload. The young couple is reluctant but agrees to the offer, with Rose initially not liking Shirley's brash behavior despite being a fan of her work. But Rose's presence helps partially bring Shirley out of her mental stupor and focus on a missing college student named Paula (ODESSA YOUNG) as the possible source for her next book.

As that writing commences and Rose is introduced to the academic world of unfaithful husbands, the two women begin to bond in unexpected ways.

WILL KIDS WANT TO SEE IT?: Unless they're fans of anyone in the cast or the real-life author, it doesn't seem that likely.

WHY THE MPAA RATED IT: R: For sexual content, nudity, language and brief disturbing images.

To continue reading the review and all of the highly detailed, scene-by-scene listings of the sex, nudity, profanity, violence and more (15 categories):

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