LILLY LIVES ALONE Review: Unchecked Grief, and the Way Out
Jeffrey Combs, Shannon Beeby and Ryan Jonze star in writer/director Martin Melnick's debut film.
Grief and the trauma surrounding it have long been a staple of the horror genre in all its forms.
Perhaps one reason is that grief demands answers which are often never forthcoming. It hangs in the air like a cloud. We lose someone (or even something) and feel that we are alone in the fog, our pain.
The irony is that, for many, this seems to trigger a desire to isolate, lest we are hurt again. Needing some space to process our feelings can quickly become a terror of the outside world. We think that until we have answers we will never be safe. But the exact opposite is true.
Counselors, clergy and hospice workers say that the quiet presence of others is often more important (and less potentially damaging) than words of advice. The ultimate resolution of grief is learning we are safe in a world where grief exists.
Lilly Lives Alone (2025) creates a deeply disturbing world in which grief grows into madness against the backdrop of small-town America and not only offers an empathetic character study of a grieving mother but showcases how neighbors, friends, and lovers can be at an utter loss about what they should do in the face of such suffering. It also shows how quickly self-medication can become poisonous.
The film hangs on the powerful performance of Shannon Beeby as Lilly. We meet her ten years after the death of her child. Barely holding on to her job, with an obvious addiction to pills and alcohol she is circling the both the physical and existential drain. She lives in terror that everyone around her believes she murdered her daughter.
She rebuffs the advances of a one-night stand who would like to pursue a real relationship. Jed has his own problems. But his gruff demeanor and lack of tact hide what may be a genuine care for Lilly.
Her closest friend Claire, a single mom, is worn out after too many midnight phone calls begging for help and can only urge Lilly to get help. Her neighbors, led by Russel, played to awkward perfection by Jeffrey Combs, have grown leery of interacting with her after having been accused of playing cruel practical jokes.
In one dynamic scene a manic Lilly chases Russel from her home after catching him looking in at the window and pins him to the ground with a handgun as horrified neighbors watch. Through all of this we repeatedly question the motives of those around Lilly. Is she simply paranoid or is Jed just using/stalking her? Is Russel peeping or doing a wellness check?
A Dark Song (2016), Talk to Me (2022), Daddy’s Head (2024), and the recent Bring Her Back (2025) are just a few of the excellent movies that have explored the dark side of unchecked grief. Add Lilly Lives Alone to their number. But Lilly Lives Alone does something those films don’t do.
It places repeated narrative weight on the idea that there must be a way out for Lilly. Communal intervention, new love, addiction treatment and mental health counseling. But this isn’t ultimately a film about founding a way out through grief as much as it is about feeling trapped. We are being invited to a deep experience of empathy here.
I grew up in the Midwest around towns like the one in this film, the homes showing signs not only of age but of the type of neglect often associated with mental illness, ailing shut-ins, alcoholism and drug addiction. The sort of places that haunt the passerby with an awful realization, “I am one big tragedy away from ending up here.”
Lilly lives alone. The question is why. Why do the most wounded end up alone and isolated? There’s a supernatural aspect to this film that viewers will have to make their own decisions about. It’s handled well.
Many will be tempted to say, as people often do in any film where things aren’t clearly spelled out, that “it was all in her head.” But that won’t wash for various reasons I won’t get into lest I spoil the film. But I will say that one could take a redemptive view of Lilly’s journey. One could also take the view that unchecked grief leads ever inward, not to a place of redemption, but one of insidious madness disguised as comfort.
The film is now playing in select theaters, and can also be watchied via various Video On Demand platforms. Visit the official Dark Sky Films site for more information.
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