Lilly

Front Row at the Movies by Shirrel Rhoades

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The Key West Chapter of the National Organization for Women (NOW) celebrates Women’s Equality Day on August 27 with a screening of “Lilly” at Tropic Cinema.

This film about activist Lilly Ledbetter is very appropriate, in that the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act was signed by President Obama in 2009, was designed to provide protections against pay discrimination.

The inequity is obvious: Women earn, on average, 77 cents for every dollar paid to men, with women of color facing even wider disparities.

“Lilly” (2024) introduces us to Lilly Ledbetter, a manager at a Goodyear tire factory who discovers that for 20 years she had been earning only half what men with the same job were receiving. The film recounts her fight for equal pay.

As Town and Country summed it up: “Ledbetter sued the company and won. Later, the decision was reversed on appeal, and the Supreme Court would go on to rule against her as well. Still, her work on behalf of pay equality wasn’t overlooked: the act bearing her name was the first piece of legislation President Obama signed into law, and she became something of a folk hero for her efforts.”

Patricia Clarkson (“Pieces of April,” “The Station Agent”) assumes the mantle of Ledbetter in this Norma Rae-eque biopic.

“I struggle often,” Clarkson says, “with decisions about what to do and what not to do. I have recently passed on quite a bit of work because I want to be challenged, and I want to be surprised.”

However, accepting the lead in “Lilly” didn’t take any struggle. “I said, ‘Oh, my God, she’s one of my mother’s heroes. I remember when I first called her and she started crying and said, ‘Oh, Patty, this is momentous for you.’ It was a gift to be given this role.”

As Variety notes, “Patricia Clarkson can be larger-than-life … but the beauty of her performance in ‘Lilly’ is that she makes Lilly Ledbetter plainspoken, dogged, a woman in way over her head. She makes her one of us.”

The film’s director, Rachel Feldman (“She’s No Angel,” “Love Notes”), says, “If you’re a person, woman or otherwise, anywhere in the world, and you are being othered or beat down or minimized or excluded or cheated or harassed, you are a Lilly.”

Patricia Clarkson adds, “Sometimes we can make movies that are not cool and hip. Sometimes, we want to just tell a story about a great American – and that’s all this is.”

“Lilly” had its world premiere at the Hamptons International Film Festival on October 10, 2024. Lilly Ledbetter died two days later, at the age of 86.

NOW is regarded as one of the main liberal feminist organizations in the US, and primarily lobbies for gender equality within the existing political system. NOW campaigns for constitutional equality, economic justice, reproductive rights, LGBTQIA+ rights and racial justice, and against violence toward women.

Women’s Equality Day was established by Congress in 1971 to acknowledge the ongoing struggle for gender equality.

Email Shirrel: srhoades@aol.com