The Great Lillian Hall doesn’t do anything particularly great to a familiar premise, but it’s still worth watching for the knockout performances. There’s Lange, whose dementia both complicates her desire to mount one last performance and resurfaces her guilt for being an absent mother. There’s Bates, who offers both sympathy and tough love. And then there’s Rabe, who’s gut-punching as the pained daughter crawling her way into her mother’s stiff arms. Everything else about the film is not as noteworthy as it drags on for way longer than it should. But that trifecta of performances makes it all worthwhile.
"While it doesn’t pull punches about the challenges that lie ahead, The Great Lillian Hall ultimately makes it clear that its protagonist is lucky to have something that’s so hard to let go."
— Christian Zilko
"Lange’s performance is so good that she gives this therapy-corn version of The Show Must Go On a worldly center you can roll with and almost believe in."
— Owen Gleiberman
Lillian Hall, a Broadway actress, has never missed a performance throughout her long, illustrious career. Yet in rehearsals for a new play her confidence is challenged. People and events conspire to take away her ability to do what she loves most.
While preparing to mount a play on Broadway, the revered Lillian Hall (Jessica Lange) finds it difficult to remember her lines, worrying her colleagues, her daughter Margaret (Lily Rabe), and her assistant, Edith (Kathy Bates).
Perhaps Lange’s love letter to acting cuts as deep as it does because she’s been in the industry for so long, and in that time has delivered some of the most memorable turns in Hollywood history.
It’s almost like watching a modernized take on All About Eve, except more dramatic than funny.
SAG Awards
1 nomination
WGA
1 win
