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LILLY
Director: Rachel Feldman Cast: Patricia Clarkson, John Benjamin Hickey, Thomas Sadoski, Will Pullen, Deirdre Lovejoy, Josh McDermitt, Bethany Anne Lind, Keith Brooks, Paul Teal, Amy Parrish, Rhoda Griffis, Judd Lorman, Robert Praigo, Darin Toonder MPAA
Rating: Running Time: 1:33 Release Date: 5/9/25 (limited) |
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Review by Mark Dujsik | May 8, 2025 The story of Lilly Ledbetter, whose legal fight against her employer for discrimination led to significant changes in the law, never feels like her own in Lilly. Indeed, co-writer/director Rachel Feldman's biographical movie is more akin to a rushed docudrama, in which everything is spelled out for the audience by both the characters within the story and, in this case, one expert who exists outside of it. There are times when Feldman and Adam Prince's screenplay relies a bit too much on the movie's primary talking head to relay the points the filmmakers want to make. To be fair, the talking head in question is the late Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the Supreme Court justice whose writing on Ledbetter's case likely resulted in Congress taking up the challenge of penning and passing new legislation to address inequality of pay. Ginsburg did literally put the task to Congress in her dissent on the Supreme Court's ruling of Ledbetter's case, and at this point, one should wonder why this review has likely talked more about Ginsburg than the eponymous subject of this movie. Feldman's approach almost demands that such is the case when discussing the piece. That's because Lilly, played by Patricia Clarkson, comes across as a secondary figure in each and every step of this narrative. Initially, she's a woman trying to get ahead at a major tire manufacturing company but kept down by her employer at various levels as her tenure progresses. Then, she's the one with a potential case against said company, left to the legal expertise of a lawyer and the disingenuous defense put forth by her former employer. Finally, she's presented as a kind of political pawn, offering speeches to the press, to members of Congress, and at the 2008 Democratic National Convention, after essentially taking up the offers of the party's leading candidates to campaign, not necessarily for them, but for the concept of fair pay. All of this, though, means that the story happens to Lilly throughout the movie, instead of the character making much of any decision or taking much action for herself. That is, in a way, the reality of Ledbetter's story up to a point in her biography, but the choice to focus the entirety of the movie on those admittedly significant and defining periods of her life means that we never get a sense of her outside of those events. The choice to make Ginsburg, by way of two or three interviews in which she participated after the passage of the law in Ledbetter's name, is an odd one, too. The late judge was obviously an expert on the case, an impassioned and wise advocate for gender equality, and a fine storyteller, but putting her in the position of narrator immediately forces us to wonder if the filmmakers trust their own ability to tell this story or their protagonist's role in her own biography. Both of those concerns are pretty much confirmed as the movie moves from one outrage to the next, one courtroom scene to another, and one speech to the suggestion of many more being made by way of a montage. In the first act, Lilly spends almost 20 years working for that tire company, being promoted and unceremoniously demoted after filing complaints about co-workers' actions and behavior, facing other forms of retaliation for speaking out, and ultimately realizing that she has been underpaid in comparison to younger colleagues and men within the company more generally. The second act consists of scenes in a couple of courts, including the United States' highest one, and characters talking about things that happen in other ones off-screen. Lilly's attorney is Jon Goldfarb (Thomas Sadoski), who serves his client more than well until vague backroom deals, sinister phone conversations, and another court's ruling fix the game against Lilly. Through of all this, there are a few scenes that communicate Lilly's personal life, from her relationship with her husband Charles (John Benjamin Hickey), who first resents his wife's decision to start a career but becomes her constant advocate over the years, to a broadly difficult relationship with her son (played by Will Pullen). She's also an avid dancer, until an accident—or "accident"—at work severely injures her leg. Otherwise, the movie delivers basic information by way of clunky writing and filmmaking, including scenes in which characters are introduced with on-screen titles as they also state their names and professional roles. The story being told is undeniably a worthwhile one, while Clarkson's understated performance is a nice counterpoint to the bluntly expository and message-oriented dialogue. The main character of Lilly, though, remains little more than a representation of the legal fight and activism that happened around her. There must have been much more to the real Ledbetter than this movie portrays, but it's too stuck in a simplistic, by-the-books form of storytelling to even consider that possibility. Copyright © 2025 by Mark Dujsik. All rights reserved. |
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(for thematic material, sexual assault and some language)
