Shirley Movie Ending Explained: Hello everyone today we are going to explain the ending of the recently released movie Shirley which is based on the life of famous Horror novelist Shirley Jackson. Let’s talk about the movie first.

Shirley is a biographical drama film, which is directed by Josephine Decker, from a screenplay by Sarah Gubbins, and is based upon the novel of the same name by Susan Scarf Merrell. The movie is based on the incident which inspired Shirley Jackson to write a new novel. In the movie we get to see the process of making and writing a successful novel, We get to see what Psychological and emotional toll it takes for the people around her. The film tells the story of a couple who come to stay with her for a while but get muddled into Shirley and her husband’s life. By the time they leave the house.

Shirley Movie Plot

As renowned for her morose nature as she is for her horror fiction, writer Shirley Jackson is crafting yet another masterpiece when the arrival of newlyweds Fred and Rose disrupts her creative process and marriage to a literary critic – and philandering professor – Stanley Hyman. As Stanley spars to maintain academic dominance over his would-be protégé Fred, Rose attempts to dampen her own ambitions and adjust to married life while living under the roof of their fiery intellectual hosts with quicksilver loyalties and myriad neuroses. When the motives of Shirley’s literary muse prove elusive, Rose’s curiosity and trusting nature make her tender prey for a brilliant author whose only allegiance is to her work.

Shirley Movie Ending Explained

Very soon in the movie, we get the heat that Shirley’s nature is very unwelcoming and she doesn’t seem to like the new guests coming and living with them. Rose who has always been a fan of the books of Shirley is fascinated by the idea of living with the person who has written the novel. But soon she realizes that Shirley is not what Rose expected her to be but this is where things start to change. Shirley’s and Rose’s friendship starts to become better than before and this is where the writer starts to Change.

She becomes more and more focused on her novel and less towards her friend. She doesn’t need Rose anymore. We get to know that Shirley had been toying with her, turning her keys so she would dance to her tune. When the novel is finished, Rose’s role is done, so Stanley sends her and Fred away. Her husband Stanley compliments her on the brilliance of her novel where Shirley confesses that this one has hurt her the most.

This implies that Shirley has done this before and Rose was not the first of the guinea pigs she had used. There must have been other people too, but she got more attached to Rose than she had intended. So, even though their time together led her to crack the story, it also made her a little bit sad about their situation.

What Happened To Rose?

When we are introduced to the character of Rose we see that she is fascinated by the novel ‘ The Lottery ‘ and is amazed despite the concept of the novel being horrific and extreme. She is very excited about living in the same house as Shirley Jackson. We are also let to know that after reading her novel Rose starts to see herself as a different person.

But the reality bites when Rose learns that Shirley is different than what she had imagined all this time. She is unwelcoming and rude. We see that Rose slowly tries to get into good ears of Shirley and those to slowly strike a friendship. Shirley on the other hand is just using her as in inspiration for a character and nothing else. Rose doesn’t realize that she has, in fact, become Paula, the girl that Shirley means to decipher.

She is captivated in the allure of an authority figure who is talented and smart and clever, and she does whatever is asked of her, just as Paula had done. At first, Rose doesn’t understand how someone could have such control over her, but eventually, she turns into the same puppet for Shirley. By the time she understands this, it is too late for her as she cannot go back to her old life and be happy with her husband now. This is because she now knows about her husband’s affair.

Gradually Rose starts to feel that she is being used by Shirley, just as by her husband. She thought she had befriended the famous woman who hid in her house so much that no other woman would even talk to her. She also developed some romantic feelings towards her, which started taking the shape of an obsession. She started to believe that Stanley had something to do with Paula when she discovered that he was throwing her and Fred out of the house. What she didn’t know was that Shirley was in on everything that had been happening to her.

Rose finally realizes that she is now is the lost girl Shirley had been trying to figure out for her book. She is the protagonist of her novel.

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