Such a frustrating disappointment

Don't Believe the Hype

The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

The plot isn't so bad, but the pace of storytelling is too slow which makes people bored. Certain moments are so obvious and unnecessary for the main plot. I would've fast-forwarded those moments if it was an online streaming. The ending looks like implying a sequel, not sure if this movie will get one

CONTAINS SPOILERS -- While a freshman in college in 1965, I saw the movie "Lilith" and I was awestruck by the characters, the black and white screen with mystic lighting from prisms in windows, and Vincent, played by a new actor (Warren Beatty) whose character was quiet, pensive, observant, sensitive, empathetic, and searching for something meaningful to become after fighting in WWII. Being raised in a small town that had a high class asylum that was never considered an anathema to that community led to his searching for a job there. Here is where our schizophrenic blond beauty, Lilith (Jean Seberg) resided and the story of his improbable success as an on the job occupational therapist. Lilith was an incorrigible patient with whom nobody on the staff could ever make favorable headway. Vincent, a handsome, athletic, and intelligent (but naive unproven "professional") member of the junior staff was drawn to Lilith to the extent that he was foolishly in love with her. Lilith blackmailed him to carry on lesbian relationships and presumptive soft core pedophilia in public while under his attending responsibilities. He anxiously awaited his "turn" during the week for her total attention to him (and of course, sex). I thought is was quite ironic towards the end when the author's prosaic descriptions of Vincent's delusions gave the appearance that Vincent was experiencing psychotic symptoms. As he realized he was snared by Lilith and unable to do anything but whatever she commanded him to do, the only thing that was left to confirm that his thinking was organized was his ability to maintain steady control of his favorable reports regarding Liilith to his supervisors. .......but even this was tainted by the fact that the subterfuge was so implausible for any normal person to carry out. The book, which I read later, ended differently than the movie, by allowing Vincent to leave his employment after Lilith was transferred out by her parents and another patient died from his total abrogation of his professional responsibilities. The book does not allow Vincent to succumb to his progression of delusions and he enjoys living with his grandfather in town no longer associated with the asylum and presumably quite sane. But I loved the movie's ending.....in which Vincent, in his last moments at the asylum as a therapist, walks out of the front door with the mutual understanding of his supervisors and himself that his working there was not a good idea and that he had failed. But then Vincent stops, and turns around, and the camera does a closeup....where his last words of the movie is......"Help me." So, I believe the movie and the book present strong considerations for a serious nearly psychotic breakdown for Vincent. When I rotated med students in my practice 25 to 35 years ago, I often recommended this book as an entertaining way to demonstrate to the students how dangerous it can be to allow any romance in a professional relationship with patients. The descriptions of Vincent's many delusional episodes are evident after he realizes Lilith is in control. When he realized that he was a "loathsome procurer" for Lilith, he described his mindset in this way: " If I try to think about it rationally, my mind becomes a cauldron of hysterical remorse". He had long commentary of nearly autistic insights on the difference between air and water on their interactions with their surroundings, talking about falling in air but the buoyancy of water not allowing such dynamic movements, etc. I found the prose of Salamanca part of the mystical and mesmerizing qualities that made this book different from all the rest. In fact, I was surprised at how much the dialogue in the movie followed the book verbatim. Salamanca was compared to JD Salinger, but Salinger's intellect had to be light years beyond JD's based on the much deeper and highly prosaic descriptions of many truths we all experience in life. A great book that never got the highest critical acclaim it deserved. Chazz46

Dreadful neurotic film dealing with wealthy people in a sanitarium. Perhaps, I'm being too nice. It's really the nut house.Hollywood just seemed to exploit these films. "The Snake Pit," and "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" were far better because they dealt with why people ended up in the way they did as well as an answer to what was going on. This mess of a film did not.Gene Hackman's brief role was impressive and probably got Warren Beatty to think several years later that he would be perfect for the part of Buck Barrow in "Bonnie and Clyde."Jean Seberg and Peter Fonda play residents of this house of loony tunes. The group therapy sessions are memorable with accusations being made while people scream out. This is pure insanity and hell at the same time.As Dr. Brice, Kim Hunter makes a huge error in hiring Warren Beatty to work at this place. Where were his references? Are they trying to show that nobody really wants to work in these kind of places? We eventually get to "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" as it becomes increasingly obvious that Beatty belongs there as one of the residents. Seberg does quite a wonderful job as the sexually oppressed, neurotic woman unable to deal with reality about her. Ditto for Fonda, who gives a gem of a performance as an intellectually repressed individual. When Vincent Bruce (Beatty) falls for Seberg, he sees Fonda as a rival so tragedy results.The black and white texture serves as a reminder of the dreariness and hopelessness of life in these mental institutions.The writing has a lot to be desired. We hear references such as: "Is insanity sadness?" or "My mother cried all the time." Response: "Was she sad?" She might have been had she gone to see this frustrating, tedious film.

I read the book many years ago, under the kind of full moon that induces rapport with lunatics. The prose style of J. R. Salamanca's novel was obviously influenced by Vladimir Nabokov's mellifluous "Lolita" but the Warren Beatty character is no Humbert Humbert. He's a dull bulb, well intentioned but capable of being a vicious at times and dragging along a lot of baggage from his childhood. All the poetry, the philosophical originality and twist, is supplied by Jean Seberg, as the schizophrenic Lillith. When in the book she uses a word like "chatelaine", he must ask her what it means.The story is this. Warren Beatty is recently returned from the Army and manages to find a job as an Occupational Therapist at an up-scale psychiatric hospital in Maryland. One of the patients is Jean Seberg. Another is Peter Fonda. The latter is in tentative, shy, but serious love with the former. "She's all I have to live for," he tells Beatty and he means it literally.It doesn't take long for the initially aloof Beatty to be seduced by Jean Seberg. And why should it? She's Hollywood gorgeous, all golden and creamy, and comes on to him when they're alone with a sweetly demonic grin. Beatty's responsibilities involve taking her to picnics and jousts and walks through the woods. In other words, these are paid trysts with Jean Seberg. My kind of job. I've worked in psychiatric hospitals but they must have been the wrong kind.Seberg's self-proclaimed love for Beatty begins to reveal some curious and unexpected aspects, like the scintillating crystals that absorb her attention. For instance, on a public street, she kneels down to chat with two little boys, kisses their fingers, and whispers something shocking into his ear. Beatty yanks her away, half offended and half jealous. He's even MORE jealous when he catches Seberg in a lesbian encounter with another patient. And when she begins to show an interest in the love-stricken and fragile Fonda, he begins to hum with an inner rage. "If you found that your God loved others as much as you, would you hate him?", she asks Beatty, very sensibly, I thought.Beatty deceives Fonda into thinking that Seberg has rejected his gift of an intricately hand-carved cedar pencil box. That's enough for Fonda and he falls on his sword. His death drives Seberg irretrievably mad. The last shot has Beatty approaching his kindly supervisors at the hospital and asking, "Can you help me?" It's an adult, dramatic movie. There is no violence or street language or nudity, although I could have wished for some of the last. But it's very well done by everyone involved. There is no clichéd "crazy music" in the score. Fonda doodles on a flute but nobody practices the scales on a maddening piano. The direction is just fine. Some brief scenes consist of nothing more than two people looking at each other. One makes a remark or asks a question. The other looks back quizzically. Dissolve to the next scene. It's not nearly as dull as it sounds.Warren Beatty does a good job. He ALWAYS does a good job, if never delivering a bravura performance. At the time of release, Pauline Kael's review dismissed Beatty as having the kind of high-school good looks that fade quickly. There are misses -- and then there are MISSES. Forty or so years later Beatty made his last appearance (so far) in a romantic part. Jean Seberg, I don't think we need to go on about. She's hot as hell. And she does fine in suggesting psychosis.But, at that, it's a romantic model of schizophrenia. It's very genteel. Oh, sometimes I guess the guests at this expensive clinic are swept up in a storm of pointless laughter, but nobody takes a dump in the communal sink as sometimes happens in real life. (That's a real example.) Fonda's character is formal and polite. And Seberg has some lines that are unique and enfilade the normal powers of reason.A strong story with competent actors and professionals behind the camera.

Often very haunting and beautiful, 'Lillith' is a hard film to put your finger on. After seeing it five days ago I'm still not entirely sure whether I really liked, but I was indeed fascinated by it. Warren Beatty and Jean Seberg as the title character both turn in interesting performances as the nurse and patient in a mental institution. Beatty slowly gets caught in Seberg's web, with her madness described as a state of 'rapture'. Is she better off existing in her own world? Is she happier? Some gorgeous black-and-white photography in this one, especially the shots of Seberg and Beatty making love for the first time. And the lesbian scene seemed really strong for the time period.