We Have Always Lived in the Castle (2018)

November 10, 2022 3:07 PM

We Have Always Lived in the Castle is a 2018 American mystery thriller film directed by Stacie Passon, written by Mark Kruger, and starring Taissa Farmiga, Alexandra Daddario, Crispin Glover, and Sebastian Stan. It was based on the 1962 novel of the same name by Shirley Jackson.

87% rating on rotten tomatoes
wikipedia page
imdb page
extended trailer

I was happily thrilled when this came out, it's a superb adaptation of Shirley Jackson's tiny but lethal masterpiece. The casting is terrific; Taissa Farmiga is great as Merricat (Mary Catherine) Blackwood, Alexandria Daddario and Sebastian Stan work well as the cousins Constance and the repulsive Charles. It's wonderful to see Crispin Glover in the role of Uncle Julian, he gracefully inhabits the obsessed man in a way that seems like, yeah, you should spend the rest of your ailing life engaged in figuring out the minute details of the murder of your family.
Spoiler: I was quite happy with the slightly changed ending of this film, regarding Charles, versus the book. Happy to see the ladies get back a little bit.

posted by winesong (3 comments total)

$5 more to MeFi! Two slots left! More info here.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 3:09 PM on November 10, 2022

Thanks for ff, DOT, seeing your comments the last couple days startled me into realizing that I hadn't posted this yet.
posted by winesong at 3:55 PM on November 10, 2022 [1 favorite]

Really enjoyed this, in the same way I enjoyed the recent adaptation of Du Maurier'sRebecca. Neither really convey much of the books' interiority, but I think that's always a challenge for film adaptations. This film conveyed strangeness in other ways, and I think it was successful.
posted by cupcakeninja at 5:30 AM on November 11, 2022