By Variety | Created at 2025-01-05 06:42:21 | Updated at 2025-01-07 02:31:07
1 day ago
It’s ordinary people, and not superheroes, who bring about justice and change in the real world. In “Lilly,” writer-director Rachel Feldman follows the era-defining work of one such everyday woman: trailblazer Lilly Ledbetter, a pioneer from humble beginnings who took her employer, Goodyear Tire and Rubber Co., to court on the basis of gendered pay discrimination. But while Ledbetter’s contributions toward the fight for equal pay are immortalized with the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009 (which essentially states that each unfair paycheck starts a new cycle of discrimination), her legacy sadly doesn’t receive the polished and sophisticated treatment that it deserves in “Lilly,” a puzzling film that can’t decide what it wants to be.
The unfortunate inelegance of Feldman’s film announces itself right at the start, as the movie struggles to establish its tone as a narrative feature that heavily leans into documentary footage. We witness Ledbetter, played timidly by Patricia Clarkson, take the stage at the 2008 Democratic Convention right before President Obama’s election. Amid close-ups of Clarkson as Ledbetter, Feldman braids the speech with actual footage from the convention, showing the likes of Joe Biden enthusiastically applauding her remarks. In theory (and perhaps in the hands of more intentional editors), this hybrid approach could yield interesting results. But in “Lilly,” it lands clumsily, signaling that what will follow isn’t so much a movie, but a series of reenactment clips supported by superior archival footage of recent history.
While “Lilly” isn’t exactly that, it’s gets dangerously close to it, especially during its first laborious half that hastily traces Ledbetter’s career at Goodyear between 1979 and the late ’90s, while she strives to climb the corporate ladder in a painfully male-dominated environment. Despite the constant harassment — sometimes even physical abuse — that she and other female workers routinely endure, Ledbetter puts herself on the map in the company’s management program (she was the first woman to achieve that at the time), committing to the corporation with nearly two decades of hard, top-shelf work. But even when the needle moves slightly for her through some well-earned promotions that she receives over the years, Ledbetter somehow always finds herself demoted back to the factory floor, noticing increasingly that men who aren’t putting nearly as much work toward the same level of job enjoy rewarding promotions.
This trajectory, enriched by Ledbetter’s inspiring love story with her supportive husband Charles (John Benjamin Hickey), is cinematic in its own right, as well as easy enough to follow and root for. But Feldman somehow insists on weaving archival material into such foolproof material, with frequent cuts to the late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Ledbetter’s greatest judicial advocate when she decided to bring her employer to justice. This makes for an increasingly frustrating viewing experience, one that cumulatively telegraphs that Feldman and co-writer Adam Prince either don’t trust the audience to understand the intricacies of Ledbetter’s straightforward case.
In that, “Lilly” gains nothing when Ledbetter is shown through her work-life balance struggles, with those scenes immediately followed by RBG’s explanation of what that dynamic might mean for a woman. The worst interruption of this sort happens after Ledbetter aims to uncover concrete evidence to prove that Goodyear has been discriminating against her from day one. Eventually (and shortly before she gets unfairly dismissed from her job), she finds a mystery note in her locker that outlines how she is earning roughly half of what her male counterparts make. Not long after, the film cuts to an interview with RBG, talking about that same anonymous note Ledbetter had discovered.
Elsewhere, the film’s earlier, flashback-heavy moments are rendered in inexplicably muted and unsightly colors — a curious creative decision that doesn’t say anything thematically. Ledbetter’s struggles with her hotheaded son, as well as her triumphs as an accomplished ballroom dancer outside of work, also get a half-hearted treatment. For the latter, she’s frequently shown twirling on a dance floor in scenes that show no trace of professional choreography.
Thankfully, “Lilly” finds its feet (albeit briefly) when Ledbetter finally takes Goodyear to court, alongside her fierce attorney Jon Goldfarb (Thomas Sadoski). The moments in which she wins her case initially, but loses the longer game in the House and Supreme Court (despite RBG’s dissents) are engaging, though mostly due to their informational nature and in spite of some overtly expository dialogue and country music tracks that superfluously spell out the film’s themes.
In the end, Ledbetter never received her settlement from Goodyear, but redefined, belatedly in the 21st century, what equal pay for equal work should truly mean. There is an undeniably winning nonfiction film in this fact that can capture the spirit of Ledbetter’s contributions to the American society as a middle-class worker, or a rousing narrative picture (à la “On the Basis of Sex”) with some big-hearted dynamism. “Lilly” sadly denies us both pleasures.
