Lillian Hall quite clearly doesn’t lack flamboyance, but Jessica Lange, who plays Lillian Hall in “The Great Lillian Hall,” has lost none of her beauty at 75, and her cheeky face seems to be even more decorative than it was then. Of course, the makeup emphasizes what’s called ‘stage face,’ which is something common in actors. Jessica Lange studied great actresses for the portrayed character she was supposed to play, whom she described as a very well known Broadway diva at that time. She found it quite common, during the actors life on the stage, that she tries to embody her famous character, because that is what the public wants and the actor feels that. So here I provide a full quotation of hers about how various well-known actresses played Lillian.
Dementia is a subject matter that has featured in a respectable number of movie dramas and although I have been candid in saying that such stories can be sad but simply exit type, dramatic circles tend to frustrate me. Indeed as the lead character dies, so does he or she have to die in the sight of the audience. “The Great Lillian Hall” in that regard manages to tackle the concern in a more straightforward manner. The events happen at an early stage of Lillian’s symptoms, hence even when she is under preparation to star in a major new Broadway production of Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard and is plagued by memory problems, the audience does not watch some horror melodrama in which the protagonist just forgets everything about herself. Instead, it is about Lillian, who is diagnosed with a serious illness, comes to terms with her future by looking back at her past.
Her symptoms do add some flair to the rehearsal. She misses cues to say her lines, messes up the positions assigned, mistakes the act to perform and even trips and falls. The only disturbing failure she registers is perhaps the most serious her strong belief that she sees her favorite dead husband (Michael Rose), a glance of a drug lord but quite an elegant one–a theatrical director. Young director of “The Cherry Orchard”, David (Jesse Williams) has Broadway stars in his eyes and yet, Lillian hasn’t lost his charms. His stubborn producer (Cindy Hogan) however, does. She is insistent that they will have to call for the understudy to her.
The film, scripted by Elisabeth Seldes Annacone and directed by Michael Cristofer, is a contraption that mostly works; it is mostly successful. It has been draped in a variety of devices, which are inexpensive such as having Lillian’s neighbor, a man who Lillian is shown flirting with, being a faux lady killer who is jaded and loves acted polish from Pierce Bournemouth or Lillian’s daughter remarking something like, “You never wanted to be my mother. You only wanted to play the same!,” or the black-and-white faux-documentary-interview excerpts cut into the documentary about, which is something like Bob Fosse Gone Cable Lite. The whole suspense about whether Lillian will succeed in the course of rehearsals and on the opening night which is important as she is the draw and one knows it is all the mystery about which a person follows through, dominating the story, but unfortunately most of the spectators know that it is built around a big ‘tight’ hole of unreality. Aren’t people probably striving all the time and the way Lillian is striving barely seems suited for what would be demanded of her here when the show runs for weeks and months on end.
Yet Lange’s performance is so good that she makes this rather media core therapy-show-cum-‘The Show Must Go On’ into one that is palpable and easy to place faith in.
It’s hard to tell who is a greatest actress in this movie, Lillian herself or Kathy Bates portraying her assistant Edith. Their constant banters are very tough and for the audience, it is quite a compelling experience as you would want to see and hear more of them. A few instances touch on the heartbreak associated with dementia (and at this, Lange is quite dramatic), but all the same, The Great Lillian Hall is fundamentally a cheerful portrayal on how one can use acting to create something beautiful out of life’s obstacles.
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