‘Lilly Lives Alone’ Brooklyn Horror 2024 Review: A Dreamy, Dizzy Masterpiece
Consumed by grief after an accident takes the life of her daughter, Lilly (Shannon Beeby) isolates herself, living in a self-imposed exile on the outskirts of her small town. Her life has shrunk to mere existence: she goes to work and she comes home. She drinks and occasionally has strictly no-strings-attached hookups. She seems to have only one friend—a coworker named Claire (Erin Way)—and avoids socializing with her neighbors. Lilly lives alone in every sense of the word.
On the tenth anniversary of the accident, her world starts to crack and shake. A one-night stand, Jed (Ryan Jonze), wants to see her again and asks her probing questions instead of leaving. At her job at a grocery store, the cans and jars that she’s putting on the shelves turn around whenever she looks away. Then, a young boy has a foaming-at-the-mouth grand mal seizure. Lilly finds a stuffed rabbit left on her porch. She assumes her neighbors are pulling a cruel prank, but when she confronts them, they deny it. Jed returns, letting himself in with her hideaway key.
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To top it all off, things are going bump in the night. Lilly is losing track of both time and her own actions. She chases pharmaceuticals with spirits and bares her teeth at her concerned neighbors. Specters of her past merge with her present, ripping open the barely-healed wounds a lifetime of trauma has left her with. Claire can’t help her. Jed certainly can’t either. Lilly lives alone: she can only rely on herself.
Written, directed, shot, and edited by Martin Melnick and produced by Sarah Johnston, Lilly Lives Alone is a feverish and deeply nuanced study in trauma, isolation, and the vicious cycles they trap us in. Dysfunction doesn’t exist in a vacuum: parents pass it down to their children. In Lilly’s case, from mother to daughter, generation after generation. Pregnancy is a prominent motif. Images of splitting cells and embryos in utero recur throughout the film. We see that Lilly keeps meticulous records of her menstrual cycles and regularly takes pregnancy tests. At various points, Lilly has painful cramps and occasionally appears to have a distended abdomen. There’s a lot of on-screen blood, and only some of it can be attributed to violence.
While the first act feels at least somewhat grounded in realism, the movie becomes progressively hazy before we slip into a hellish quasi-lucid dream. Lilly’s neighbors gather outside her house like the silent predators that populate home invasion nightmares. Claire spends some time with Lilly, but later, Lilly can’t reach her over the phone. Jed returns, telling Lilly that she called him, begging him to come over, which Lilly has no recollection of. The time period seems to be set in the ’90s…but a few anachronisms throw even that into question. The line between reality and delirium blurs and frays. As spectators, we’re just as unmoored and helpless as Lilly is.
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Overall, Lilly Lives Alone is disorienting, confusing, distressing, and utterly brilliant in its execution.
Shannon Beeby delivers a powerhouse performance as Lilly, infusing the role with a combination of raw vulnerability and rage that makes her character compelling and sympathetic. She’s supported by Ryan Jonze, who manages to be both infuriatingly intrusive and endearing as Jed. Erin Way’s portrayal of Claire calls to mind memories of that cool and reliable friend you once had—the one who always answered the phone no matter how late it was and encouraged you to come to work on time for once.
Also in the cast are Jeffrey Combs and John Henry Whitaker, playing Lilly’s neighbors Russel and Randy, respectively. Ellianna Kellam plays Lilly’s daughter, and Karla Mason and Jerry Basham appear as Lilly’s parents.
Benjamin Cleek provided the music for Lilly Lives Alone; Jebari Dean acted as the sound mixer, working with sound designer Matthew Reisinger. Special effects and visual effects were created by Carlo Mery and Michael Matzur, respectively, with special effects makeup coordinated by Hannah May Cumming. Maria Allison Parker did the production design, with set decoration by Gwen Hopman-Damon, costume design by McKayla Sheldrake, and hair and makeup by Savannah Somerville.
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Lilly Lives Alone
Summary
‘Lilly Lives Alone’ is a brilliantly executed fever dream.
