Review: Lilies Not For Me


Official synopsis: 
A gay novelist, Owen (Fionn O'Shea) and his psychiatric nurse (Erin Kellyman) bond over a series of "dates" prescribed to "cure" his homosexuality. He tells her how his previous relationship degenerated when his partner, Philip (Robert Aramayo) tried a risky procedure to become heterosexual.

Robert Aramayo has been absolutely killing it on Amazon's The Rings of Power, a show that apparently only myself and my husband watch. Through him, this little film came on my radar as it slowly made its way around the festival circuit. 

Lilies Not For Me is not a light viewing, and I didn't expect it to be. Any film about gay folks in the 1920's can't possibly be without pain. Though this did take it a few steps further than I expected. While not overly graphic, the things that happen are horrible and it makes you just want to wrap the men in this story in a warm blanket and tell them everything is going to be okay. It's quite horrifying, but not surprising that parts of this were inspired by real events.

I praise this film for being beautifully shot. Writer/Director Will Seefried does a fine job shooting his first feature. There's some excellent symbolism there that I thought was quite beautiful. The story as well is engaging, even though you know there is no true happy ending to be found here. For me there was only one thing that holds this film back, and that's Fionn O'Shea's performance. 

I'm not familiar with his other work. The only other thing I've seen of his is Cherry, and I don't recall him in it at all. This material felt like it was too heavy for him. He spends the film looking like he's trying really hard to remember the next line. He especially comes off stilted when you watch Aramayo, and Louis Hofmann who comes in later in the film. Even against Kellyman, who doesn't get much to do outside of listen to Owen tell his story felt more natural than he did. 

And that becomes a bigger problem when the film wants you to look at what Phillip does through a very critical lens. I ended up feeling more sorry for Phillip than I did Owen because Owen was such a nothing-burger. And maybe some of that is in the writing because his only personality trait is "writer" but most of it was on the performance.

I still think this film is very much worth the watch. It's a nice first feature, and Tubi of all places picked it up for streaming in the U.S. Though that's not without it's issues. Watching Owen and Phillip fuck only to be immediately showin a diaper ad was certainly a choice.

Grade: B-

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Random Ramblings: The Radio Flyer Conundrum

Review: Armand

My Favorite Movie Youtube Channels