
In “The Great Lillian Hall,” Jessica Lange depicted a veteran stage actress on the Broadway stage, a theatre diva with a habit of overacting, constantly quoting her past roles and impersonating greats, who portray DuBois like women, because in fact, they have much of Blanche in them. (People think they are their own fantasies). However, this does not mean that just because Lillian Hall is a loud and boisterous diva, she is not baring her soul. Lange is, after all, a stunning woman who has a shape that magically becomes more theatrical as the years progress, and particularly more at the age of 75 years this is quite a sight worth seeing! In the movie ‘The Great Lillian Hall’, this face narrates the whole story of emotion. Even when Lillian lies (and even lies to herself), the magnificence of her emotions is so overwhelming that it is hard to believe that she is not in her right mind.
In one of the calmer moments, on the porch, together with her adult daughter Margaret (Lily Rabe) whom she never got to spend time with, something that’s forgiven because there’s always a dramatic performance going on, that’s always eight times a week, Lady Lillian is saying Margaret was once a kid and she would cuddle her and sing to her – “Hush little darling don’t you cry”. Night falls at least Lillian would go home to put young Margaret to bed and now on the porch she softly sings that very lullaby. Things are different with Lady Lillian now, and her voice is old and cracked. And what we see and hear in Jessica Lange, the sensations, sentiments, feelings, and portrayals so subtle and thin like rice paper, is an extraordinary sight: how does it feel to be nostalgic? a dull pang of regret, forlornness that Lillian now feels from being an absentee mother, and a new set altogether about being depressed for the fact that as always, she’s leaving again and this time it is in good shape, Lady Lillian will not be back. All that encompassing warmth and understanding she brings to the audience is a pain they never saw because the gripping truth is she is now diagnosed with dementia that robs her of everything else.
There have been quite a good number of movie dramas that have dealt with dementia, and I have to say that I have been on the other side of the equation where sometimes they are moving but always too dramatic. There is a moment when the leading lady or leading man begins to retreat and in doing so, so does the audience. Lillian Hall’s “The Great Lillian Hall ” addresses that particular issue quite satisfactorily. Lillian’s symptoms of the disease were merely developing at the time the play was made, and it even makes sense that she is rehearsing for a new Broadway show, “The Cherry Orchard,” but has anxiety about her forgetfulness, rather than the film being a ghastly medical drama in which she suddenly loses her identity. Instead, it is about someone like Lillian who has to deal with a horrible diagnosis and a terrible future, but still somehow manages to look inwards and make peace with herself and her past.
I suppose her a while addressing the facts and finally speak the truth is not so easy as it sounds. Hence why she misses it all — the lines, the blocking, the acts, everything, and manages to even face-plant. The select side is pretty dramatic too: she has stably convinced herself that her husband, a remarkable theater director Michael Rose, who for unknown reasons resembles a sophisticated European drug dealer, stands right in front of her. Director David (Jesse Williams) is associated with “The Cherry Orchard” and is considered a rising star making his debut on Broadway. And still there is a level of optimism in him regarding Lillian. Although she still remains in contact with the extent a bit too far. She’s so adamant about firing her that she keeps talking about bringing in the understudy.
The film, penned by Elisabeth Seldes Annacone and directed by Michael Cristofer, is an apparatus that (for the most part) succeeds. It’s pieced together out of contraptions, such as having Lillian’s neighbor, who she makes love to on their grand Ukrainian South Central Park balconies, being played with bittersweet affection by Pierce Brosnan as a silly, womanizing character, or Lillian’s daughter stating “You never really wanted to be my mother. You always wanted to be acting!”, or the B/W tsunami of faux documentary-interviews that resemble Bob Fosse Gone Cable Lite style of movies. The entire tension about whether Lillian would survive through the rehearsals and the performances on the first night – and her popularity is the one selling the tickets to the play – soon turns into disappointment because one realizes it has a heavy undertone of fairy-tale. Is it possible that someone like Lillian who is struggling so much can be expected to do this show six times a week for months on end?
However, Lange’s performance is so effective that she provides this rather hoaky therapy version of the show, The Show Must Go On with some worldliness that one can go with and almost believe.
Lillian depends on her long-time personal assistant, Edith (Kathy Bates) for just about everything, and these two actors have a wicked chemistry you’d want to hear for hours. There are a couple of scenes that touch on the pathology of dementia, Lange, at those moments, is fierce, but “The Great Lillian Hall” is mostly a good-natured film about acting one’s way through adversities one may encounter in life, frustration for high drama.
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