On Demand Weekly

On Demand Weekly provides new movie reviews of hot movies on demand from the POV of watching from the comfort of your home. Today’s review: HBO's NO ONE DIES IN LILY DALE.

I’ve always been fascinated by psychics and mediums. I can’t convince myself to believe in them one hundred percent, but I can’t dismiss them all as fakes, either. That is the appeal of NO ONE DIES IN LILY DALE for me. Lily Dale, New York, is a community of Spiritualists.

Folks who believe that spirits live on and still communicate with us, if only we could open up enough to hear/see/taste/smell/feel it. Houdini famously exposed many spiritualists of the turn-of-the-previous-century as fakes, but that doesn’t deter the good folks of Lily Dale.

In NO ONE DIES IN LILY DALE, filmmaker Steven Cantor doesn’t attempt to expose mass fakery or fraud. He lets the characters of the town speak for themselves, and they are indeed characters! However, they seem completely sincere in their beliefs and their desire to help others. Along with being a beautiful, lovingly maintained neighborhood, it is a real community with perhaps a few more eccentrics than a typical small town.

The film also doesn’t make fun of the people who come to Lily Dale in search of answers, whether it is to find closure and comfort after the loss of a loved one, or to prove to themselves right and righteous in their own beliefs.

Many do find comfort and closure, especially the man from Chicago whose promising, college-bound son was shot and killed trying to shield another kid while they were caught in gang crossfire. Is it real, what the mediums tell him? Does it matter? He finds comfort for himself that he can share with his ex-wife, and the rest of their lives will be better for it. Unlike the woman from Southern California who also lost a teenage son, this time to cancer. She can’t bring herself to let go of her rigid beliefs and accept what the mediums tell her, and she leaves unconvinced and uncomforted. But is that wrong?

NO ONE DIES IN LILY DALE gives no answers and makes no judgments. It simply gives us a unique look at a unique place and charms us in the process. I know I want to go there, now more than ever!

- Jean Tait

Jean Tait is a new contributing writer to On Demand Weekly. Currently the Director of Programming for the Connecticut Film Festival, Jean has programmed for the Jacksonville Film Festival and Sundance Channel.

NO ONE DIES IN LILY DAL Available On Demand until 9/07/10

TVPG / Run time (83 min)