New Anne Hathaway movie set in New England but filmed all over NJ

“Eileen” isn’t the kind of movie looking to light the box office on fire. Considered low-budget at $16 million, the thriller/mystery stars New Jersey’s own Anne Hathaway. It just went into nationwide release on Friday December 8.

It’s set entirely in New England, and the bleakest time in New England. Winter. Perhaps they needed that texture, because it’s described as a hauntingly dark psychological thriller.

Thomasin McKenzie plays a secretary working at a boys’ prison who meets Rebecca, a new psychiatrist there, played by Hathaway. The Harvard-educated doctor is a glamorous blond who ends up having a huge impact on Eileen’s life. No spoilers.

Here’s the fun thing for all of us.

Metuchen made the cut with their mayor sharing photos back from the December ‘21 shoot.

Morris County’s Great Swamp National Wildlife Refuge appears in the film.

So does Jersey City’s A. Harry Moore School on JFK Boulevard.

Middletown’s Main Street shows up. A hospital scene was filmed at Bergen New Bridge Medical Center in Paramus.

Cranford, Springfield and Summit show up repping my home county of Union. Even the Essex County Courthouse in Newark was used.

New Jersey is a chameleon. With our unique features of modern and historic, big city and suburban and rural, mountains and farms and ocean, we can transform to anything. It’s one of many reasons filmmaking has become bigger every year in the Garden State.

It’s nice to see Anne Hathaway, raised in Millburn and a frequent visitor to the Jersey Shore, sees it that way too.

Opinions expressed in the post above are those of New Jersey 101.5 talk show host Jeff Deminski only.

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