Lilies Not for Me
Lilies Not for Me
Lilies Not for Me: The period drama Lilies Not For Me calls on viewers to consider a terrible, now mostly overlooked strain of the history of homophobia. However, debut writer and director Will Seefried – creator and co-star of Laura Linney miniseries Sink Sank Sunk – attempts to treat the subject matter in a rather peculiar way which is not only tone-deaf but leaves the viewer with an unsatisfactory experience that is part classy heritage film and part cheesy ‘Gothic’ drama. The Spanish-speaking world may particularly benefit from this once Edinburgh Festival at least. But this generation may regard it as being rather out of date and rather coy – at least, when it is trying hard not to be downright in your face in Lilies Not for Me.
The action takes place in England in the early 1920s. The drama centres on Owen (Fionn O’Shea), a young writer who suffers a creative block with his second novel and becomes a patient in the psychiatric hospital, which he enters as he is undergoing ‘treatment’ for his anosognosia in terms of his homosexuality. In between the vomit-inducing needles, he practices having heterosexual ‘dates’ with eager nurse Dorothy (Erin Kellyman), who is very keen to help him with his warming up process.
Owen spends some time living in a rather austere cottage out in the country. It is during that time that he receives a visit from Philip (Robert Aramayo), an old friend and a doctor who has been waging the First World War. In this picturesque setting and weather, the sexual tension between the two grows, but Philip voices his opinion that the feelings should not exist and be fixed instead. Even before that, though, the men say their fantasies won’t go unchecked, which leads to a serendipitous couple of weeks of sensual passion as seen through the lens of graphic skin-on-skin imagery in Lilies Not for Me.
The interlude is so satisfying for both males that it confounds reasons when Philip declares that it is time to cut off the enthusiasm at its roots and suggests a radical surgical procedure – even if the amount of blood loss is minimal, the recovery period is surprisingly short and painless, as is the herculean task of a hapless intruder too briefly who is an unwilling donor.
Then there is another guest who has also not been introduced yet, Charles (German actor Louis Hoffman, who is quite convincing as a sleek and flirty British man), who is looking for his father who seems to have gone missing. Under what appears to be a very the pressure of the time, Charles is however not in a hurry and opts to take a while at the place for a naked open-air body scrub and some lessons with Owen: Grizzly Bear dance. More personal ones express themselves – up a tree, so appropriate for this pastoral scene – as a result of Owen’s reading the lines of his father, where the picture gets its title from, the 19th century poet Digby Mackworth Dolben.
The redeeming complainant of this disjointedly put together film are the rural flashbacks: Pero they receive an uneven treatment and appear to be tampered with Owen’s artistic visions. The rural regions are stylized in an almost saccharine fashion that is reminiscent of the white linen drama era of the 80’s Merchant Ivory films, and other gay movies such as Maurice and Another Country. Cold and clinical, Owen’s hospital scene is set in a grim enclosure where he is accosted by a gandy attendant.
Philip’s (historical, real) medical procedure is more out of sync; why are you cringing? Of course, there are no images, but it may be expected that there will be a cringe, or perhaps a few, from the number of disjointed slashes of feeling that are portraited. And the last shot, yes, why would director Seefried try to evoke realism when using such an image as Saint Sebastian, a universal gay icon, well part of christianity, which doesn’t help either.
The Señor of Game Of Thrones and The Rings Of Power Aramayo has a rather strange ability, as he is at once brutal and softhearted while also having the tendency to feel just a little threatening. Dorothy Kellyman, who also appears in Top Boy and Willow has more attitude than the role originally describes, which is generally more reserved politeness.
O’Shea, this time around more masculine and charming than he was in Normal People and Masters of the Air (and like Kellyman a STOT), manages to infuse some sort of ironic criticism in his depiction of the Owen character, which is predominantly dull and bathes almost all scenes within a hospital context.
Nevertheless, for the greater part of the film, the writer’s character feels more like a wide eyed artist who is idealistic to the core and should not be skirmishing in the bucolic setting as it would be a dull affair as witnessed in Terence Davies’s dedication to the epicene Lost Generation.
Such a general visual monotony is sustained further by the fact that the certain expansions within the country even have ‘stone’ and ‘oatmeal’ as their colors, while some costuming pieces are decidedly more Edwardian than even the 1920s they are meant to convey. Closing titles empty the bag about the loose history from the drama and its reason. But Seefried does have an immersive style of playing the period as he combines a lot of tension with comical macho journalism.
It’s a shock to come across such a young filmmaker of presently acting so old-fashioned unless you interpret the film as an intentional respect for the olden era – the ‘love-that-dares-not-speak-its-name’ period of gay cinema.
Watch free movies like Lilies Not for Me on Fmovies
- Genre: Drama, Romance
- Country: United States
- Director: Will Seefried
- Cast: Fionn O'Shea, Robert Aramayo, Erin Kellyman
