Pictures of Lily almost has an idea of what it wants to do. In fact I would go as far to say it's a film made by someone whose seen a lot of films but isn't quite sure why they work as well as they do. It follows two people as they walk around Brighton and just kind of chat about life.
It is shot very well, the cinematography really adds to things and the way they film Brighton does show it off to be a vibrant and alien place with such varieties of cultures.
The acting isn't too bad, while the man can come off as quite boring as he refuses to vocally emote, Lily is played quite well as she seems fun and lively however an issue is they almost question her character but never go far enough to actually make it interesting or dynamic. It is challenging to create a relationship between two people without them knowing who the other really is but sadly that does mean while the dialogue can sometimes be interesting, it gets very repetitive and they seem to do the same thing again and again killing the pace of the film. Clearly it was very focused on keeping the mystery that the dialogue has to be about life statements making the film feel boring.
The writing is confused, I think it's trying to be deep and philosophical but doesn't really work and just comes across as pretentious. The two leads have little chemistry, you never buy that these two get along. Often in film, action determines character, but that's difficult in a film where they do nothing and talk about life. We ultimately know nothing about them (which is intended) but it means they're not interesting enough to stay with. They look awkward and if this is meant to be a love story then this aspect of the movie fails. In a way it's hard to tell if this is a film about love or friendship, the film fails to realise the potential of either and is stuck in this awkward middle ground.
The ending also feels like an insult as two characters out of nowhere just appear and seem to say "If you don't like this film well then you just like big dumb action movies".
Ultimately the film is mediocre, it tried some things which were fairly interesting but just didn't really know where the story was going and wanted to shroud itself in too much mystery that it forgot that mystery is more interesting through eventual reveals, clearly confused and trying to do too little.
The film doesn't really ever try to keep you engaged. I did see a previous version and this one was better compared to the original which was awful, this one was more focused but again wasn't focused enough.
I'm sadly not done...
I'm making it no secret that I posted an original review about the 2013 cut (which has been replaced with this version about the 2015 cut) which gained a response from the director. I won't tell you what he said (out of not wanting to make this anymore tense than it already has become) however I will let you know that some of his points against my review were "I hadn't seen the new version which was way better" and he basically blamed me that if the film didn't do well it was my fault because of my previous review, also what a horrible person I was (not acknowledging that the "rough cut" I saw back in 2013 was shown to an actual audience).
In short, the film is confused and doesn't know what it's trying to go for, in attempts to be deep and meaningful it loses focus and doesn't know where to take these characters. It is well shot and some of the cast do a decent job (the soundtrack also greatly helps the film and does add to the atmosphere), but sadly these can't save it.
