Last modified on Thu 24 Dec 2020 03.19 EST The review – Shirley Photograph: Landmark Media/Alamy Stock Photo During quarantine and its long, unending tail, my mind has often returned to Shirley, the psychodrama from director Josephine Decker and screenwriter Sarah Gubbins that imagines a chapter in the life of the mid-century horror master Shirley Jackson with her signature slippage of sanity. For one thing, the author, played exquisitely by Elisabeth Moss, was agoraphobic, often trapped for months indoors, the weight of anxiety consuming her house like gnarled, enchanted roots. It’s somewhat relatable. But the film’s standout is its slow-burn coda, as Shirley awaits her narcissistic husband, the literary critic Stanley Hyman’s (Michael Stuhlbarg), verdict on her latest novel. For nearly three minutes, the camera holds on Moss’s face, as Stanley paces out of the frame and finally, torturously delivers his review: “Your book is brilliant, darling.”